Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 23, 1994 TAG: 9407250059
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Would the decision affect the Virginia Military Institute case?
As lawyers pored over U.S. District Judge Weston Houck's 42-page decision, their preliminary answer is: Nobody knows.
The case against VMI, brought by the Justice Department, is nearly 5 years old. Faulkner sued for admission to The Citadel 16 months ago. The two are the nation's only state-supported all-male military colleges.
Some say the VMI case is so far ahead of The Citadel's, there's no way the two will ever merge. Others, noting that the latest appeal in VMI will be argued in September, suggest The Citadel may appeal Friday's decision, conceivably landing both cases in the same court about the same time.
In any event, "There are some factual differences in the VMI case [and] The Citadel. People tend just to look at the bigger issue," said Steve Fogelman, head of the VMI Alumni Task Force.
At Mary Baldwin College, President Cynthia Tyson said Friday there has been no discussion of South Carolina's sending its would-be cadets to the proposed Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership, which will be set up at the private Staunton school.
The proposed institute was approved by U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser this spring as an alternative to admitting women to VMI. Those plans were created after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered VMI to go private, admit women or come up with an alternative plan.
The Justice Department answered with an appeal, which will be heard in September by the 4th Circuit in Richmond.
Even as the South Carolina judge ordered Faulkner into the school, he gave The Citadel 60 days to come up with a plan for accommodating other women who want to attend. Houck wants the plan in place by September 1995.
That's when Kiser wants to see the Virginia women's program in action.
South Carolina observers expect The Citadel to come up with something similar to VMI's Mary Baldwin plan.
"If the 4th Circuit approves of Mary Baldwin, and if Houck approved The Citadel plan, that would keep women out of both institutions in the future, it would seem to me," said Robert Black, a Charleston lawyer representing Faulkner.
"Unless, of course, we would ask the Supreme Court to hear the case."
The VMI case is widely expected to go to the nation's highest court. At the moment, the focus is one step down the judicial ladder, at the appeals level.
Asked if Faulkner's victory might affect VMI, Nathaniel Douglas, lead attorney for the Justice Department team, said he was still reading Houck's decision and simply couldn't say.
On the other side, thoughts were different.
"We don't feel the decision as it has been cast by Judge Houck has any bearing on the VMI case," said Robert Patterson, the Richmond attorney leading the phalanx of lawyers battling to keep public VMI all-male.
The two cases share many of the same players. Patterson and the VMI attorneys from McGuire Woods Battle & Boothe have joined the team defending The Citadel. And the faces from the Justice Department legal team appear with Faulkner's lawyers.
Sara Mandelbaum, acting director of the American Civil Liberties Union's women's legal project in New York, said the Faulkner decision could affect VMI. Although the cases come out of different district courts, they fall under the same appeals circuit.
And Houck found that The Citadel did indeed have to admit at least one woman.
"This shows that it makes a real difference when you have a real, live person sitting in your courtroom," Mandelbaum said.
"It really makes it a compelling case, so in that [sense], VMI might get some human-ness [now] lacking," she said.
by CNB