Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 4, 1994 TAG: 9406060130
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MARK H. BRYANT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
No mention is made that Mary Baldwin admits only women to its full-time undergraduate student body. The implication by omission is that this sort of prejudice is tolerable. Of course, Mary Baldwin and scores of other women-only colleges are private colleges, as opposed to state-supported. But since when is prejudice a matter of funding? Isn't prejudice the same charge, whether it's leveled at a men-only college or a private club? Why don't private funding sources have to obey the same laws as sources of public funds? Why has the federal government not sued all women's programs at public universities?
Ms. Mandelbaum accuses the Citadel of prejudice in denying female veterans to its day program. She describes the awards these veterans have won as no more than the usual tour-of-duty awards that any competent sailor receives. But even had they been extraordinary awards for valor or service, how is that proof of the Citadel's prejudice?
VMI and the Citadel aren't guilty of prejudice. Their programs of education and training for young men simply recognize an age-old condition of mankind. We're a species of two genders. These schools attempt to develop desirable character in young men by challenging them physically, mentally and emotionally.
No program anywhere has ever been able to adequately challenge both males and females in the same group. In any significant numbers, what's challenging to males is insurmountable to females, and what's challenging to females is too easy and thus not transformational for males. These schools present these challenges to their cadets in a system that appeals to their sense of honor, competitiveness and comradeship. They aren't inimical to the female; rather, they are simply dedicated to the development of the male.
A rite of passage, a test of manhood, a ``taking of place'' is a familiar concept in many societies throughout our history as humans. It isn't just an entry into an ``old boy network'' where a young man is magically connected somehow to success. Dismissing it as old-fashioned doesn't invalidate it. Men become men under the tutelage of men and in the company of men. This has nothing to do with legality or funding, or the relationship between men and women. This doesn't deny that women have their own rites of passage, that they develop the same desirable characteristics, or that they deliver the same value to our societies that men do.
Mandelbaum's tirade is a familiar one throughout history. Group X (whites, Americans, heterosexuals, men) has something that Group Y (blacks, Haitians, gays, women) doesn't have, and it isn't fair. The accident of birth and the inequity of opportunity doesn't matter. The outcomes must all be the same, regardless of prior conditions, and the government (state, federal, United Nations, etc.) has to fix it so that I have whatever they have.
Sorry, Ms. Mandelbaum. Even if VMI and the Citadel were forced to have coed corps, you couldn't change the conditions that made them successful institutions in the first place.
Shannon Faulkner will never be a Citadel man. Women can want what men have, they can sue and even win in the courts. They can perform the same tasks to the same or higher standards. They can assume the trappings of what they may think is equality. But it won't make them happy. It won't make them VMI or Citadel men. It will cause them to lose the opportunity they already have - to help make men better men.
Mark H. Bryant is an assistant professor at Virginia Military Institute and a member of its Class of 1977.
by CNB