ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, July 9, 1996 TAG: 9607090030
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: NEAL J. NAFF
DESPERATE to prove their relevance, radical feminists have bagged their biggest game trophy in some time - the Virginia Military Institute and its all-male admissions policy. But who was the aggrieved party? Before the decision, there were four all-male colleges in the United States. Now there are two, while more than 50 all-female colleges thrive. But at least the egregiously wronged ``daughters of Virginia'' who wish to attend VMI may now do so.
Now, because of a ruling based more on political correctness than on common sense, VMI will offer a coeducational undergraduate education with some watered-down military training - an experience already available at more than 100 state-supported colleges that offer ROTC training.
Justice Ruth Ginsberg is woefully mistaken to believe that women can be incorporated into the present VMI system. The lower federal court found that to do so would destroy ``any sense of decency that still permeates the relationship between the sexes.'' But perhaps that's the true agenda of VMI's critics. The VMI Ginsberg so warmly praised in her opinion is gone, and single-sex education (for men, at least) is more endangered than the timber wolf.
As for the intellectually cheap comparison to racial segregation made by VMI's critics - integration at VMI required no changes whatsoever in our system.
But VMI can change. Indeed, we could become a center for the performing arts or otherwise drastically alter our mission to please the political will of the high court. The new VMI will no doubt appear better to some, worse to others, but the same to no one. However, the women and men who enroll will find their goal of a VMI education (the one so highly praised) will forever elude them - for it will no longer exist.
As bitter as I am about the court's prejudicial decision, I hope the trophy hunting stops here. Single-sex education is a remarkably effective form of education for some. Ask Hillary Clinton or another Wellesley graduate.
Like VMI, many of the nation's all-female colleges limit admissions to a single sex, receive government support in the form of research funding, scholarships and direct subsidies. Nevertheless, they deny their ``incomparable'' and ``unique'' gifts to 50 percent of the population because of their traditional (some would say outdated) mission of providing single-gender education.
The inconsistency is blatant: What the court has preserved for the daughters of the privileged is no longer available to the sons of the middle class. But I sincerely hope there's enough hypocrisy and elitism on the high court to allow that inconsistency to continue.
Given the tone of Justice Ginsberg's opinion and the reaction of VMI's critics, I'm optimistic that single-sex education will survive for at least 50 percent of the population who are able to afford the cost of so-called private institutions. It seems for this high court that it's open season on bucks only.
Neal J. Naff of Baltimore, Md., is a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Medicine and a Virginia Military Institute graduate, class of 1987.
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