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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 11, 1995                   TAG: 9510110051
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

FAULKNER LOSES CITADEL APPEAL

The court, without further comment, said the appeal was ``dismissed as moot.'' The justices also rejected an attempt to substitute Nancy Mellette, another woman who wants to attend The Citadel, for Faulkner.

They took no action on a still-pending appeal by South Carolina, which argues the school can remain all-male even without a separate state program for women begun this fall. The Citadel and Virginia Military Institute are the nation's only all-male, state-supported military colleges. The high court already has agreed to decide whether VMI may keep women out after the state created the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership at Mary Baldwin College.

The Citadel, in Charleston, S.C., was ordered by a federal appeals court last April to admit Faulkner as a cadet if the state did not establish a comparable program for women at another school.

This fall, a state-financed women's leadership program was opened at Converse College, a private women's college at Spartanburg, S.C. A November trial is scheduled on whether that program is an acceptable alternative to admitting women to the Citadel.

Citadel lawyers argued that her appeal was moot, since she dropped out. So did the Clinton administration, which has sued in an effort to open The Citadel to women. The administration also said her Supreme Court appeal was premature because lower courts have not ruled on the Converse College program.

Faulkner's lawyers had contended her appeal remained valid because she still wants to attend the Citadel if other women are admitted.