ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 5, 1995 TAG: 9512050047
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press
Seventeen active or former female military officers have sided with the U.S. Justice Department against Virginia Military Institute's males-only admissions policy.
The women have filed a legal brief on behalf of the Justice Department, which will argue before the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 17 that the state-supported school should be coeducational.
The officers' group includes two retired generals and six graduates of West Point's first coeducational class.
``There is no reasoned basis why VMI, an institution dedicated to creating `citizen-soldiers,' should maintain a program that is more `macho' than the United States armed forces,'' the brief says.
Army Lt. Col. Rhonda Cornum, a former prisoner of war in the Persian Gulf War, is among the female officers who signed the brief. She is quoted as acknowledging differences between men and women but insisting ``everyone should be allowed to compete for all available jobs, regardless of race or gender.''
Other women in the group include retired Army Brig. Gen. Evelyn P. Foote, a Vietnam veteran who served as commanding general at Fort Belvoir, and Kristine Holderied, who graduated at the top of her U.S. Naval Academy class in 1984, according to the brief. She was the first woman to do so at any of the service academies.
LENGTH: Short : 36 linesby CNB