Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 29, 1995 TAG: 9506290075
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: STAUNTON LENGTH: Medium
A federal judge said on Wednesday that a new U.S. Justice Department motion, if granted, would delay South Carolina's alternative military education program for women - based on one ready to start at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton - until next year.
That would force Faulkner's admission to The Citadel's Corps of Cadets, because courts already have held that she must be admitted by August to either the alternative program or the corps.
U.S. District Judge C. Weston Houck will consider the motion and issues surrounding the proposed parallel program at Converse College in Spartanburg, S.C., in a hearing next month. If the case goes forward, Houck would have less than a month to hear arguments and decide if the Converse plan is suitable.
"In our view, that's impossible," said Faulkner's lawyer, Val Vojdik. "I told [Faulkner] to break in her shoes. So we're confident."
Wednesday, Houck convened an unusual, mobile session of his Charleston, S.C.-based court to tour Mary Baldwin's alternative to Virginia Military Institute. The alternative program, in the works for two years, was upheld by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in January. The Justice Department has appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, but the Mary Baldwin program will begin this fall with a $7,300 per-student state subsidy.
Like a file of damp ducklings, about 40 lawyers, court officials, college administrators and reporters - including one journalist dressed in shorts - followed the suited but sensible-shoe-wearing Houck around the rain-soaked campus.
The judge and his entourage were given a firsthand look at preparations for the first, 42-member class of the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership. The institute students are to arrive Aug. 22 for orientation, which will include a three-day "wilderness experience."
"It may be that this Mary Baldwin experience is irrelevant to what we have going on in South Carolina," Houck said. "I doubt that's going to be the case."
The group strolled into the empty Room 207 in the Carpenter Academic Building, where a college official announced, "As soon as we can all file in, we can all file out, unless Judge Houck has any questions."
He did not.
They visited the Pearce Science Center and passed fish tanks and a cage containing a chinchilla.
They visited the first-year dormitories and the gym. All the while, Mary Baldwin security officer John Kelly and his crew kept television and still photographers at least 100 feet to the side and rear of the procession because of ground rules laid down by Houck. The photographers scrambled along on the steep, hillside campus, filming in the rain.
And harried court reporter Vince Rolland, standing like a musician playing keyboard in a rock 'n' roll band, hustled to keep up with the judge and take down on a stenograph all utterances for the official record. At one point, the judge went into a side room to grab some paper towels so Rolland could dry off his machine.
"It's helpful to see what they've got here," Citadel lawyer Dawes Cooke said. "The goal and mission of the Converse plan is very much like what they've done here."
But after touring the 1,200-student campus and hearing about the new program, Faulkner's lawyer was less than impressed. "This is about as similar to VMI as the Girl Scouts," Vojdik said. "It's simply a device to continue sex discrimination at VMI."
Vojdik said another concern is that Virginia has committed to subsidizing the Mary Baldwin program regardless of what happens in court. South Carolina's plan is just a "paper commitment," with no firm funding or program, she said.
Faulkner, a 20-year-old junior, has been seeking full admission to The Citadel since 1993. She has taken classes at the school since January 1994, but hasn't been permitted to join the Corps of Cadets. Houck ordered her admission a year ago, but The Citadel appealed. In April, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling that Faulkner's exclusion violates her constitutional right to equal protection under the law. It gave an August deadline to admit Faulkner to the corps or an alternative.
by CNB