ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 25, 1996 TAG: 9607250064
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHARLESTON, S.C.
Four women have been accepted as cadets at the formerly all-male Citadel military school, and at least one is planning to enroll this fall, a federal judge was told Wednesday.
``The Citadel is operating under the assumption that women will be there,'' Citadel lawyer Dawes Cooke told a U.S. District Court judge overseeing the school's admittance of women.
Two of the women who have been accepted have indicated they plan to attend school elsewhere this fall, but two others have paid nonrefundable $150 room deposits. One is Kim Messer, 17.
``She had decided to go to [a military school in] New Mexico because at that time The Citadel had not decided to accept women,'' said her mother, Bobbie Messer. ``But The Citadel is where she always wanted to go to, and now she will go there.''
The hearing was the first before Judge C. Weston Houck since the Supreme Court ruled that the all-male admissions policy at Virginia Military Institute was unconstitutional.
Two days later, The Citadel's governing board voted to accept women, ending its 153-year tradition of males only. |- Associated Press
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