THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 29, 1994 TAG: 9409290496
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A15 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short : 34 lines
A leadership training program at Mary Baldwin College does not afford women the same opportunities that cadets receive at the all-male Virginia Military Institute, government lawyers argued in court Wednesday.
``They're still saying women are not tough enough to make it at VMI,'' Justice Department lawyer Jessica Silver told reporters after a hearing before a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
But lawyers for the state-supported military school argued Wednesday that a program at the private women's college is an acceptable alternative to ending VMI's 155-year-old, men-only admissions policy.
The leadership program was proposed to satisfy a 4th Circuit ruling that VMI must admit women or go private unless the state offers comparable training for women elsewhere.
U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser, who originally had upheld VMI's admissions policy, ruled in May that the leadership program meets the appeals court's requirements. The Justice Department appealed.
All VMI students wear military uniforms, live in spartan barracks and are called cadets. They wake to reveille and head to communal showers. First-year students are forced to shave their heads and are put through rigorous discipline and physical training on the ``rat line.'' by CNB