Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 16, 1993 TAG: 9310280342
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PATRICIA A. MCGUIRE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Coming as it does in the midst of a bitter election battle in Virginia, the governor's decision to embrace the ``separate but equal'' solution for VMI is hardly surprising. Any other position would probably spell political disaster for his party. What is sad is that the governor's solution not only ignores the needs of women who seek access to VMI, it also exploits the economic needs of a fine small women's college for the sake of ``saving'' VMI from the ultimate infidel - ironically - women.
The governor's solution is cynical on many counts.
First, this proposal tells women what they should want, rather than allowing them to choose their own form of education based upon their own analysis of their desires and capabilities.
Second, this proposal patronizes women by suggesting that their own interpretation of their aspiration and ability is wrong and that they should trust men who have devised a ``better'' solution, based upon the more insightful male interpretation of women's abilities and desires. For the governor to suggest that women can't handle the ``rat line'' is unspeakably demeaning. Women's performance at major service academies and in the military should have put this canard to rest ages ago. On this score, his proposal ignores a whole generation of performance, research, scholarship and advancements in gender equity in education and in the workplace.
Third, let's open our eyes: This proposal is not about satisfying the aspirations of women at all. Rather, it's about protecting the prerogatives of men, most importantly those prerogatives that help to determine access to power. VMI is not, ultimately, about education in and of itself, nor is it about military service, since relatively few of its graduates actually become commissioned officers. VMI is, ultimately, about access to the channels and corridors of power that are available to its graduates.
The governor's solution is cynical because it trivializes the aspirations of women to have access to the same channels of power that the school opens to its men. They may certainly achieve a better, or even superior, general leadership education at Mary Baldwin. However, for the purposes these women wish to achieve, the result will not be equal.
Were VMI a private college, the answer for these women would be ``too bad'' and that answer would have to suffice. However, a state-run program that is inherently unequal is also inherently unconstitutional. Virginia has no business promoting gender inequality as a matter of official state policy.
Tragically, Mary Baldwin College is being used to support an inherently unequal solution. To be a ``small'' college today is to be ``struggling'' economically as well. The thought of a quick infusion of $5 million or $6 million to create a ``leadership institute'' would make my presidential eyes light up, too. But some gifts carry too high a price, especially when the price becomes the soul of the institution.
Women's colleges exist because of the historic discrimination against women in education. We continue because women continue to be denied access to educational opportunities in many ways, even in the heart of a coeducational environment. We do not exist to protect power and privilege, to keep economic and social opportunity away from others. Rather, we exist to create economic and social opportunity for all.
Women's colleges are not separate because we think that separation can also be equal. Our goal, quite frankly, is to achieve that day when we are no longer necessary. As this case shows so sadly, that day is still generations away. As with historically black colleges and religiously affiliated colleges, our real mission to try to alleviate the effects of discrimination against a group that has suffered historic discrimination. For that reason, we cannot allow ourselves to be used to perpetrate discrimination against women.
I have no doubt that Mary Baldwin College will create a very fine leadership institute; such would be in keeping with the school's long tradition of educating women to be leaders, and this is also the tradition of women's colleges. The very suggestion that leadership education is a new idea in a woman's college would be laughable, were it not so damnably contemptible.
VMI and Gov. Wilder are not suddenly ``allowing'' Mary Baldwin to empower women to be leaders. It has been doing just that for quite some time. However, what Mary Baldwin is doing is ``allowing'' Gov. Wilder and VMI an escape hatch to ensure that VMI does not have to change anything, even while Mary Baldwin will have to change much, realigning her own mission and principles to conform with her new political and economic reality.
Once again, the ``little woman'' is sacrificing everything she stands for to satisfy her man.
Patricia A. McGuire is president of Trinity College in Washington, D.C.
by CNB