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

DATE: TUESDAY, April 25, 1995                   TAG: 9504250111
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

APPEAL TIME ON VMI CASE EXTENDED

The Justice Department has been given 30 additional days to decide whether it will appeal to the Supreme Court a lower-court ruling allowing Virginia Military Institute to exclude women.

The request for more time was prompted by an April 13 opinion from the same lower court in a separate, but related, case involving The Citadel of Charleston, S.C. That ruling cleared the way for Shannon Faulkner to attend the all-male school's corps of cadets unless The Citadel establishes a separate program for women.

Solicitor General Drew Days, in court papers filed last week, said no decision had been made about appealing the VMI case. But, he said, more time is needed ``to assess the implications'' of The Citadel ruling.

Under Supreme Court rules, the Justice Department had until Wednesday to file an appeal, but the court awarded the department 30 more days.

The two rulings from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond held that VMI and The Citadel could exclude women if each school developed a separate, and substantially equal, program at another college.

That idea was first suggested by VMI attorneys and endorsed by the appeals court. In Virginia's case, the requirement would be fulfilled through a separate academic and military program at the recently created Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership at Mary Baldwin College.

Attorneys and administrators for The Citadel have vowed to follow that path. Unlike Virginia, South Carolina would provide tuition assistance for women to attend at least two existing colleges in the state and then supplement their education with a women's institute.

VMI and The Citadel are the only publicly financed, all-male military colleges in the nation. Both have been under attack in court for their refusal to admit women.

Faulkner applied to The Citadel in 1993 by omitting references to her gender on high-school records. The college initially accepted her, thinking she was male, and then withdrew the acceptance after realizing she was a woman.

by CNB