ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, November 2, 1996 TAG: 9611040045
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
Arguing strongly against "micromanagement and fundamental changes" sought by the federal government, the state will ask a federal judge to let Virginia Military Institute recruit and admit women without the detailed plans requested by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The state attorney general's office detailed its request in a brief released late Friday to the media and mailed the same day to U.S. District Court in Roanoke.
"It's not appropriate for [the Department of Justice] to run VMI, and if they do they will try to undermine those unique benefits that have made the school so attractive to both young men and young women," Deputy State Attorney General Bill Hurd said Friday.
Since September, when the VMI Board of Visitors agreed to admit women to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling against its all-male admissions policy, the school has steadfastly said it hopes to go coed with minimal input from the Justice Department, which sued VMI in 1990 to force it to admit women.
VMI considers its plan for coeducation to be the board's resolution, which the attorney general filed with the Roanoke federal court. The school's recruitment effort so far has including the hiring of a female admissions officer, coed open houses and mass mailings to prospective female cadets. Five women have applied.
But last month, the Justice Department asked the court to order the state and VMI to state exactly how they will integrate women into the Corps of Cadets by next fall. It asked for details such as how VMI will handle access to the alumni network, recruitment, school administration and the honor code.
A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 13 in Roanoke.
The Justice Department is relying on desegregation cases for guidance on how to remedy the unconstitutional exclusion of women from VMI, but the state sees the situation differently. Virginia is looking to the plans drawn up for the University of Virginia's court-ordered conversion to coeducation in 1969. It says VMI has provided the court "the same level of detail" as in the UVa case.
"It's the case where coeducation resulted from a court-ordered plan," Hurd said. "If there are others, I am unaware of them. Plus, of course, it's a school here in Virginia and not very far from Lexington."
Hurd also argued that the racial discrimination cases don't apply because they were written to integrate entire school systems. "This case involves one small college whose governing board is taking immediate steps to obey a court decision that is recently issued and that sets a new legal mandate for the Institute," he wrote.
Hurd also responded to what he called the Justice Department's "ill-founded fear that women at VMI will have some heightened risk of sexual harassment."
"Long before our society at-large declared sexual harassment to be unlawful, VMI cadets were taught a way of life that does not tolerate abuse of women," he wrote, pointing to the school's ban on "Conduct Unbecoming a Cadet."
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