ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, September 25, 1996 TAG: 9609250077
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
NPTE: Below
CITING HARASSMENT at a stoplight, a Christiansburg High senior has decided not to join the rat line.
About two weeks after Kathy Kreye told The Roanoke Times she wanted to join Virginia Military Institute's first coed class, she pulled up to a stoplight and got the scare of her life.
"This guy in this blue pickup truck pulled up beside me and rolled down his window and was just cussing me out telling me he wish[ed] I was dead, and that I definitely [would] get hurt if I just continued on," the Christiansburg High School senior said Tuesday.
She did not report the incident to police because she did not get the license plate number.
"He told me that he wished I was dead. How could I even think about going to VMI?"
She's not thinking about it anymore.
The July incident came within weeks of the Supreme Court's order that VMI admit women or give up public funds. But in light of the harassment and the fact Kreye wants to study criminal psychology, which VMI doesn't offer, she's ready to join the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets next fall.
The Tech corps first admitted women more than 20 years ago. "That's a bonus right there. It's equal opportunity, because it's been like that for so long. It's not going to be a trial period like VMI this coming year," Kreye said.
Kreye's a runner and soccer player who has a 3.6 grade-point average in her courses - all advanced-placement classes. She wanted to go to VMI because it's tough.
"Basically, what happens after graduation is what I was looking for. I was looking for job placement right out, good pay, respect," she said. "While I was in, I was looking for restrictions. Something to keep me focused."
Kreye went along with her boyfriend's family recently when they dropped him off for his freshman year at VMI, said Betti Kreye, Kathy's mother. Neither she nor her boyfriend's mother was allowed into his barracks room.
"That is the first time she had ever seen any distinctions made between what males and females can do," said Betti Kreye. "She started really questioning, even if [the school] went female, could it go enough so she would feel comfortable there?"
The VMI Board of Visitors voted Saturday to admit women next fall. But Kreye already had made up her mind not to attend. While visiting her boyfriend on campus, she has found herself up against what "rats" find themselves up against: the upperclassmen.
"I've been up at VMI where the upperclassmen make my boyfriend walk me in front of the barracks windows so the people can see who I am. They make him, like, parade me around in front of the barracks windows so they can see the girl that wants to go. That's just uncomfortable," she said.
Kreye started thinking about going to VMI, or any military college, in her freshman year of high school.
"All-female military schools - that is what she would have wanted in the best of all worlds," said Betti Kreye.
They visited the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership, set up last year at private Mary Baldwin College to give women their own program. But Kreye wanted a VMI-style program.
"She wanted the rappelling, the guns, the training, all that," Betti Kreye said. "She just really wanted the physical training.
"On the way home, she said, `That's not for me. That's not what I want a military school to be.'''
The harassment Kreye endured after saying she wanted to go to VMI devastated her, her mother said.
"She had never been confronted by anyone who talked to her like that, treated her like that, and for no reason other than she was trying to do what she wanted to do.
"We then had a little talk about lots of places in life you're going to run across people who don't feel you are capable, simply because you're a woman, of doing everything you want to do."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: File. Kathy Kreye said VMI's limited curriculum is alsoby CNBa factor in her decision to go to Virginia Tech. color.