Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 13, 1994 TAG: 9401130191
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLESTON, S.C. LENGTH: Medium
At the request of the 151-year-old military college, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist granted a stay to keep Faulkner from attending classes today.
"The significance is not so much that the injunction has been delayed for three or four days. The significance is that the Supreme Court is taking this issue very seriously," said Dawes Cooke, the school's attorney.
The Citadel and Virginia Military Institute are the nation's only all-male, state-supported military colleges. Admissions policies at both are the target of federal lawsuits.
Faulkner, 18, wouldn't talk to reporters after the stay was issued, one of her lawyers, Suzanne Coe, said.
"Shannon's crying. You don't see Shannon crying at all," Coe said. "It's understandable, the kid's dreams just got smashed another time."
Coe said she expected to file the briefs in the case by Friday. If the Supreme Court does not lift the stay by Monday, Coe said she would recommend that Faulkner enroll again at the University of South Carolina-Spartanburg, where she took classes last semester.
Earlier, Faulkner, who plans to major in education, walked several hundred yards through a driving rain and a horde of reporters to register in Bond Hall, the turreted administration building that dominates one end of The Citadel's parade ground.
"I didn't expect all of this and I didn't really expect to be here," Faulkner said as she advanced through the crush to meet her academic adviser, register and pay tuition. "I actually expected the battle to be a lot longer."
She said she was treated nicely by college officials and signed up for biology, math, English, history and education. But she said she felt "overwhelmed" by the attention.
"Everybody is saying, `You're making history,' " she said.
Though cadets promised to treat her with respect, they kept hoping for a last-minute reprieve.
"We don't want the Class of 1994 to be labeled as `the year of Shannon Faulkner,' " senior Will Benton said.
Faulkner initially was accepted by the college after she had references to her gender deleted from her high-school transcript. The Citadel rejected her application when it discovered she was a woman, and she sued, challenging the constitutionality of the all-male admissions policy.
Faulkner, who is from Powdersville, S.C., said she hoped to become a full-fledged member of the grey-uniformed corps of cadets within a year.
by CNB