ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, July 6, 1996 TAG: 9607080060
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Above
Mum's the word among ``the VMI family'' when it comes to talking publicly about whether the 157-year-old military college will go private or admit women.
From Thursday through Saturday, the Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors meets in Lexington to hear legal interpretations of the Supreme Court's 7-1 decision that qualified women should not be denied a VMI education.
The choices for the state military college appear to be whether to admit women or go private to maintain the school's all-male admissions policy.
Whether they'll even make a final decision during the meeting is unknown. One board member said more studies could be ordered.
Another board member, Richmond City Manager Robert C. Bobb, said, "I think we have to decide."
But even as the board of the VMI Alumni Association talks of launching a fund-raising campaign to buy the school, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, others are talking about admitting women.
In an interview June 28, Superintendent Josiah Bunting III said he expected the school ultimately would admit women.
He pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court's majority opinion written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Over the course of her opinion, Ginsburg called the school ``incomparable,'' mentioned that it has ``notably succeeded in its mission to produce leaders,'' and talked about its ``extraordinary opportunities for military training and civilian leadership development.''
``[She] is saying, in a kind of backhanded way, `What you are is admirable,''' Bunting said. ``In effect, she is telling us, when women come here, we should retain the full force and full vigor of the adversative system. That's what they want.''
This week, however, he was not returning calls from reporters. Neither did the chairman of the board of visitors, Bill Berry, retired chief executive officer of Dominion Resources in Richmond.
Most board members declined to speculate on what might happen at the board meeting.
"You can talk from your heart, but you've also got to look at what your head is telling you," board member James Roberts, a Richmond lawyer, said this week. "I have no idea what the upsides and downsides are of the various options."
Each of Virginia's public colleges and universities is governed by a board appointed by the governor. At VMI, four members must be non-alumni, and four must not be Virginia residents.
"They are stewards of the taxpayers' investment in the institution," said Gordon Davies, the longtime director of the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia. " Ultimately, they are responsible to the people of Virginia and their elected representatives."
Legislators, who would have to approve the sale of the VMI campus before it could go private, also are saying little.
"I think the most important thing for the legislators to do is to keep their powder dry," said House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton. "The Supreme Court of the United States has spoken and told us what the law of the land is. Virginia is going to have to comply with the law."
Cranwell said it would be "absurd for anybody to take a position" before they know what plans VMI will propose, Cranwell said.
To go private, VMI would need to to make up the $10 million a year in state operating funds.
Plus, there's the unknown value of the campus, or post, which is a national historic landmark. Some estimates have set it at $150 million.
State Sen. Janet Howell, D-Fairfax County, said the school ought to pay fair market value if it goes private.
In addition, a Defense Department panel has recommended that the agency not allow ROTC at schools that discriminate against women. "Without ROTC, there isn't a VMI," said board member and VMI alumnus Edward Miller Jr. of Alexandria.
To admit women, VMI would need to alter the barracks, add staff in places such as the infirmary, and possibly even make changes in sports teams to adhere to Title IX sex discrimination laws, Bunting said in his recent interview.
Conservative women's activist Anita Blair, appointed to the VMI board last year, said she believes many people want to take the school private.
"My personal opinion, I would love to see that be a practical opinion," Blair said.
But there are "problems and obstacles either way," the Arlington lawyer said.
Roanoke alumnus Bill Gearhart was willing to make one prediction about alumni consensus.
"I think most VMI alumni, whatever happens ... we want the standards to remain the same, where everybody who goes there is treated equally," Gearhart said. "That's the strength of the school; whichever way that will happen is the way the alumni will support."
Outside the VMI circle, observers have drawn up their chairs.
Among them is former state Sen. Emilie Miller of Fairfax, who introduced legislation years ago to make VMI go coed.
Her reaction to the Supreme Court decision?
"I told you so," she said.
She thinks the school should go private. "Then they could do whatever they wanted ... and it would no longer be run by the state of Virginia."
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