Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, November 11, 1993                   TAG: 9311110197
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JUDGE'S LATEST RULING ON VMI MUDDIES WATER

Kiser's action "could be no more than saying to the Justice Department: `Keep your shirt on, wait your turn,' " said John Paul Jones, University of Richmond law professor.

"Or [it could mean that] under no circumstances does Judge Kiser find co-education to be acceptable. I would find that to be surprising." Jones supervised the "friend of the court" brief filed by the Virginia Women's Attorney Association and others during the appeals process.

"I don't think this is a dramatic juncture in this case," said Kent Willis, director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia in Richmond.

Jones and Willis were responding to word of the order, which had not been filed Wednesday afternoon.

Kiser ruled Tuesday that the U.S. Justice Department's response plan may not simply propose that women be admitted to all-male VMI, said William G. Broaddus, an attorney for VMI. The plan is to be filed Nov. 15.

Kiser's ruling, made during a telephone conference call, stems from the Justice Department's Oct. 29 request to file a plan of its own.

The "Mary Baldwin plan" submitted in September by VMI is one of three alternatives allowed by an appeals court that found the public school's all-male policy unconstitutional:

VMI may admit women, go private or find an equal-education alternative. The appeals court also made clear that it was up to the state and VMI to propose how to bring the institute in line with the Constitution.

In January, hearings will be held to see if VMI's plan to establish a women's leadership program at Mary Baldwin, a 150-year-old private women's college in Staunton, meets the test of proving an equal-education alternative.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department will be ready with its plan by Nov. 15, said spokesman Myron Marlin. However, he would not say whether the department would have responded, before Kiser's ruling, by advocating that women be admitted to VMI.

Cynthia H. Tyson, President of Mary Baldwin, has said that VMI's legal troubles dovetail with a leadership program the women's college already was developing.

The Virginia State Conference of the NAACP, concerned that the Mary Baldwin plan advocates "separate but equal" education, sees the ruling as good reason to hold onto plans to file a brief supporting the admission of women to VMI.

"We're not at all sure whether it would have any impact on this particular judge," said Linda Byrd-Harden, executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chapter. "It's apparent that the judge has indicated he is not going to consider the issue of whether women should be admitted.

"The question in his mind is whether the Mary Baldwin proposal is constitutional."

The Richmond NAACP office will file its brief when - and if - the case is appealed, she said.

The ACLU's Willis also seemed to be looking ahead to an appeal, saying his organization has never seen the Mary Baldwin plan as viable.

"It is hardly a replication of VMI somewhere else, which is what the court required," he said. "The only reason the courts have allowed VMI to create this alternative is that VMI argues it is unique. That logic makes creating an alternative program nearly impossible. How can you create two things that are unique?"

But Leigh Farmer, an attorney and chairwoman of Women for VMI, had only one response to word of Kiser's action:

"Good.

"I think women going to VMI would destroy the educational opportunities at VMI," she said. "And, yes, I'm a woman, but what better place for women to be educated in areas of leadership than a women's college?"