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

DATE: SUNDAY, May 29, 1994                   TAG: 9405290052
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C16   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLESTON, S.C.                                LENGTH: Medium

THE CITADEL'S FUTURE MAY INCLUDE WOMEN

What they really testified to was the future of The Citadel.

When U.S. District Judge Weston Houck recessed the trial after hearing 27 witnesses and hours of legal point and counterpoint, the smiles were all on the faces of Shannon Faulkner and her attorneys.

They believe that, after 15 months of legal battles, she may this fall become the first woman to march in the gray line of the all-male corps of cadets at the 151-year-old military college.

No final decision has been made. Houck will give attorneys a couple of weeks to review the testimony and prepare their closing arguments. He'll hear those arguments next month and rule after July 1.

But Houck's order on Friday that both sides draw up contingency plans for allowing Faulkner to become a full-fledged member of the corps this fall had her attorneys, if not ready to celebrate, at least ready to stock the champagne.

"We're very pleased. It's pretty clear that Shannon will be there in the fall, hopefully as a cadet," said Val Vojdik.

Any plan would have to deal with how to house and feed Faulkner on campus. She has been attending day classes, but not participating in military activities, under an order from Houck. The judge said any contingency plan also needs a policy to prevent sexual harassment.

"We're very good at training young men. We have had no experience training young women," said college Dean Clifton Poole.

"I'm not celebrating. He hasn't issued his final order yet," said Faulkner, who is working as a waitress in Charleston this summer. She said she wanted a break after the two-week trial.

Citadel officials said the writing isn't on the wall. They said the judge's order for a contingency plan isn't surprising and the military school still hopes to prevail on the grounds its all-male policy is constitutional.

Poole said there is "not a chance in hell" of putting up the white surrender flag and admitting women.

Faulkner applied to The Citadel last year, after asking a guidance counselor to delete her gender from her transcript. The Citadel accepted, then rejected her application after discovering she was a woman.

Faulkner then sued. It was, she testified last week, her first brush with sex discrimination.

The college defense is that the all-male policy is part of a statewide policy of educational diversity, not illegal discrimination.

In a similar legal challenge at all-male Virginia Military Institute, the nation's only other all-male, state-supported military college, the courts told the college to either admit women, go private or create a parallel program. VMI opted for the latter and will create a women's leadership training program at Mary Baldwin College, an all-women's school.

South Carolina's proposed remedy is less specific - a broad outline of possibilities. The state says it will have a plan within 60 days if Houck rules against the college. But a coeducational Citadel is not listed in the options.