ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, July 1, 1996 TAG: 9607020010
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: The New York Times
Reacting to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that the Virginia Military Institute must admit women, the alumni offered this weekend to mount a $100 million campaign to buy the college from the state.
The court's 7-1 ruling in a landmark sex-discrimination opinion left open the possibility of VMI remaining all-male if it became a private institution, leading its alumni board to explore that choice. But the alumni board said it would do so only if the institute's governing board approved the move.
Privatization also would need approval by the General Assembly. Several legislators said such a stand, although legally possible, would be politically difficult because it could be seen as trying to circumvent the Supreme Court.
While the institute's lawyers said a drive to make the school private would have little chance of success, alumni leaders called it a matter of principle.
``You always fight for what you think is right until you've been badly whipped, like General Lee was the day before Appomattox,'' said Edwin Cox III, president of the VMI Alumni Association. ``If you took an overly cautious approach, we'd still be British.
``If there was going to be a rogue effort, I would be spilling it all out. We would not do anything out of spite. I want to go to my grave seeing the institute flourishing.''
The consensus, which came during a closed weekend meeting in Richmond of the 25-member board, will be shared with the school's governing Board of Visitors when it meets July 12-13 in Lexington. The board of visitors is expected then to consider whether to take the school private or admit women.
Incoming alumni association president Steve Fogelman said "more meetings are scheduled in the future" and that the board's weekend work remains "a work in progress."
After meeting with the alumni board, which held sessions here Saturday and Sunday, VMI Superintendent Maj. Gen. Josiah Bunting III said, ``There seems to be great determination among the alumni at least to explore making an effort to take the school private, but with a clear sense of the difficulties such an effort would entail.
``When the whole thing is over, I suppose there's a good chance we'll have to go ahead and admit women.''
Cox said Sunday he believes it's possible that some of VMI's fiercely loyal alumni may withhold financial support if women are admitted to the school.
"I think it's a possibility," he said. "Conversely, there may be those who support it, were it to go coed, who wouldn't otherwise."
VMI's $180 million endowment is the largest per-student endowment of any public college or university in the country.
A spokesman for the institute, Michael Strickler, said officials estimate that the buildings and grounds would be worth more than $100 million. In addition, the school receives about $10 million a year in state financing.
The VMI Foundation, the fund-raising arm of the alumni group, has already spent more than $6 million on the seven-year court fight to keep women out.
Bunting said other obstacles could make privatization difficult, including the chance that the Department of Defense would suspend the school's Reserve Officers' Training Corps program. He also cited ``the possibility of a lawsuit by the Justice Department to enjoin us from going private.''
The Citadel, the nation's only other all-male military school that is state-supported, has announced that women are welcome to join the class that begins marching in August.
Staff writer Allison Blake contributed to this story.
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