THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 19, 1995 TAG: 9508190050
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: CHARLESTON, S.C. LENGTH: Long : 144 lines
Shannon Faulkner, who waged a ferocious legal battle to march as a cadet in an all-male military academy here, abruptly withdrew from the college Friday, fighting back tears and explaining that 2 1/2 years of stress had ``all crashed in'' on her in her first few days here.
Standing in a driving rain in front of the infirmary where she had stayed under close watch since late Monday, Faulkner, 20, said she hoped other women would follow through what she began and become graduates of the harsh program that the Citadel has used for 153 years to train some of the top military, political and business leaders in the South.
Faulkner, upon leaving, was one of at least 30 cadets to acknowledge that they could not withstand the rigors of ``hell week.'' On Monday, during her first day of military training, she and three other cadets were felled by an intense heat wave, but she never made it back out of the infirmary.
Acknowledging Friday that she was suffering from enormous emotional stress, she formally resigned.
As she made that announcement, cadets around the trim, manicured campus began yelling, chanting and whooping in glee. Some banged pipes against their windowsills.
Others ran through the rain, waving their hands in the air and shouting out the news that so far they had succeeded in keeping the Citadel all male.
Yet no one but the jubilant cadets seemed to think that the struggle ended Friday. Instead, lawyers on both sides of this emotional issue immediately vowed to fight it out all the way to Washington.
The Citadel is one of only two public, all-male military colleges in the country. The other is the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington. Virginia is creating a women's leadership program at Mary Baldwin College to keep women out of VMI.
Both schools face legal challenges on charges that they practice sexual discrimination against women.
Lawyers on both sides of the Citadel's case have petitioned the Supreme Court for consideration during this coming term. A case involving VMI is also up for consideration there.
``It's not over,'' said William Lewis Spearman, the assistant to the Citadel's president.
The Citadel has already spent millions on this case both in legal fees and in the $5 million paid to Converse College, a financially strapped all-women's school in Spartanburg, S.C., that has agreed to develop a comparable leadership program for woman. Spearman on Friday urged the Supreme Court to consider human factors as well as legal ones before legislating conduct from the courtroom bench.
``From a legal standpoint, the case is unaffected,'' he said. ``But maybe it will make the courts think twice'' before becoming embroiled in complex social issues, he said. The battle isn't lost, Faulkner's lawyers say
Faulkner's lawyers said they remained confident that the Supreme Court would uphold their argument that the Citadel's exclusion of women violates their constitutional protections.
``We are very sorry that it didn't work out for Shannon, but this is a case about all women,'' said Henry Weisburg, one of her lawyers. ``Our position is that we won this case. Our goal was to get Shannon admitted to the Citadel and we succeeded. This has nothing to do with the argument that women can't cut it.''
Valorie Vojdik, another of Faulkner's lawyers, pointed out that almost 200 other women had written to the college for information in the past two years and explained that the case would simply shift to others' shoulders.
``The battles about segregation didn't involve just one individual,'' she said. ``It took a lot of people fighting.''
During her fight to get in, Faulkner said she had endured death threats and her home was vandalized. Bumper stickers and T-shirts appeared in Charleston with slogans ``Save The Males'' and ``Shave Shannon,'' a reference to the legal fight over whether she would have to shave her head like male cadets.
In fighting to keep her out, officials had said she would not be able to endure the physical rigors of training and had noted that she is 20 pounds over Army weight standards for her height. But Faulkner said Friday that her physical condition or stamina was not the issue.
``All the problems that they thought that I may have had if I did join the corps, those are not the reason I'm leaving,'' she told reporters as she stood in the rain, sometimes choking back tears, just before leaving the campus.
She said she was felled by the stress she endured during her long fight to enter the school. ``I wanted to make it through this, but circumstances beforehand have just made it very difficult for me to,'' she said.
She said she had been physically keeping up with the other cadets, but ``the past 2 1/2 years came crashing down on me in an instant.''
Faulkner had no harsh words for the school as she prepared to leave it. ``It's hard for me to leave,'' she said, ``because this was something I had worked for for so long. And there is even added stress because I don't know what's going to happen with the case. But I really hope that next year a whole group of women will be going in, because maybe it would have been different if there had been other women with me.''
Faulkner joined incoming freshmen Saturday. For two days, she walked with other incoming students, called ``knobs'' because of the head-shaving they are subjected to on entering the military program.
Monday, the training shifted from academic orientation to military training. As the official initiation known as hell week got under way, every one of the new students learned that for nine months they must live with continual harassment, little sleep, extreme stress and little comfort.
Monday's indoctrination, and Faulkner's problems, began when the knobs were rousted out of bed with shouts and the sound of banging and wild yells before dawn. In short order, they were taught how to march, how to obey orders and what responses they were allowed to use with upperclassmen.
For a year, new students are essentially allowed only three answers: ``Sir. Yes, sir,'' ``Sir. No, sir'' or ``Sir. No excuse, sir.'' According to Citadel traditions, those answers must be delivered at a neck-bulging yell, a reaction known as popping off.
A heat wave that sent the mercury above 100 degrees Monday, with a heat index reading that accounts for the added oppression of humidity sending the discomfort factor to 115 degrees Fahrenheit. By that night, four cadets were in the infirmary. One of them was the corps's only woman. "I know that my life will be miserable for a while."
Friday afternoon, Faulkner said she was miserable about her choice but had no easy path to follow. ``I know that my life will be miserable for a while,'' she said brokenly, acknowledging both the hatred of many Citadel supporters and alumni and the resentment of some women who had looked to her as a leader. ``So many people are either mad at me or disappointed in me. And some are elated that I'm leaving. All I have to say is I have to think about my own health right now.''
Those hard words were music for other cadets. As Faulkner drove toward an uncertain future without plans, delighted cadets ran in formation around the quad, ripping off their shirts, yelling and chanting the letters spelling Citadel.
Even amid the uproar, the college president, Lt. Gen. Claudius ``Bud'' E. Watts III, tried to strike a calmer note. ``We knew that we had to put our best foot forward,'' he said. ``We attempted to do that.''.
And in the Thundering Third Herd, as the third barracks is nicknamed, Jeremy Scott Wilson, the senior who serves as the battalion commander, said he was confident that Faulkner had received no unduly harsh treatment.
``I'm happy to see the Citadel stay all male,'' he said somberly. ``But at the same time, I think she did well in the time that she was here. We were going to give her the same training we give everybody.'' MEMO: Related story on page B3.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Shannon Faulkner
by CNB