Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 17, 1994 TAG: 9406210105
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLESTON S. C. LENGTH: Medium
``The motion is totally frivolous,'' U.S. District Judge C. Weston Houck said, threatening to ask the school's lawyers to show why he should not fine them or the school for filing a frivolous motion.
Houck is expected to rule next month in the lawsuit filed by Shannon Faulkner, who had references to her gender removed from her high school transcript when she applied to and was accepted by The Citadel. She was rejected when school officials learned she was a woman.
Faulkner, 19, has attended Citadel day classes since January under Houck's order while her case was pending, but she has not been allowed to march with the cadets.
The Citadel and Virginia Military Institute are the nation's only all-male, state-supported military colleges. The policy at VMI is also being challenged in court.
During closing arguments, Citadel lawyer Dawes Cooke said keeping the school all-male was not unconstitutional discrimination against women but part of a broad state policy of diversity and using limited state resources.
Cooke said that, unlike VMI, The Citadel's policy of single-gender education is defended by the state and the legislature.
Virginia never justified providing a single-sex program for men at VMI and not for women, Cooke said. A federal judge said VMI may stay all-male if it creates a military-type women's leadership program at private Mary Baldwin College, an all-female school.
The presidents of South Carolina's two private women's colleges, Columbia and Converse, showed little interest in creating a similar program.
The Citadel's mistrial motion, filed last week, said Houck may have prejudged the case. It cited his order that the school prepare a plan to admit Faulkner as a cadet this fall.
``I haven't even begun the process of deciding this case yet,'' Houck said.
Houck referred to a news story in which Citadel officials said they were meeting with newspaper editors statewide - at about the time they filed the motion - in an attempt to get fair coverage.
Citadel officials have a right to meet with the media, Houck said, ``but I don't think you can file frivolous documents in this court ... if the purpose is unfair publicity.''
The motion said Faulkner's lawyers introduced evidence challenging the benefits of single-gender education, though Houck had said he would not address that issue because it was decided in the VMI case.
``To suggest I will violate the rules of this trial is absurd,'' Houck said.
by CNB