THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 23, 1995 TAG: 9508230464
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
Three more South Carolina women want to join the legal challenge to The Citadel's all-male admissions policy, say lawyers for Shannon Faulkner, the 20-year-old who dropped out of the school last week after only one day.
The lawyers said they expect to file papers in U.S. District Court this week on behalf of at least one of the women. ``There is a woman who will step in and take off in the same shoes that Shannon stepped out of,'' attorney Suzanne Coe said Tuesday.
The lawyers hope to have several plaintiffs so the women can lend one another moral support in court and - if they win - on campus, said attorney Robert R. Black.
``That's how The Citadel was able to deal with Shannon Faulkner, by isolating her as an individual,'' he said. ``My own feeling is that we'll need a handful of hardy pioneers here.''
The court rulings that allowed Faulkner to become a cadet should also apply to the new woman, Coe said, but Citadel spokesman Terry Leedom disagreed.
``The Faulkner case applies only to Ms. Faulkner, and it's not a class-action suit,'' Leedom said.
School officials said they will fight the addition of any plaintiffs to the lawsuit.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ordered Faulkner into The Citadel's corps of cadets unless the state established a separate leadership program for women.
The appeals court said that was ``special, conditional relief'' for Faulkner, however, and ``does not alter our determination that South Carolina may still elect to offer single-gender education to men and women.''
A $10 million women's program at Converse College in Spartanburg has been proposed as an alternative. A court hearing on the merits of that program is set for November.
Noting that all women will have the right to apply to The Citadel if the school loses in November, Citadel lawyer Dawes Cooke Jr. said there was no reason for more women to join the suit.
Even if no new women are added to the case, it would continue because the Justice Department has joined Faulkner as a plaintiff.
The woman most likely to apply this week to become a plaintiff is a 20-year-old student at another South Carolina college who has been involved in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps on her campus, Faulkner's lawyers said. They would not describe the other women.
Citadel officials say that they have mailed information on the school to about 200 women in the past two years, but that only two have applied. Both are on hold pending the outcome of the court case, Leedom said.
Faulkner arrived on campus 11 days ago with nearly 600 other first-year students. Two days later, on the first day of the orientation session cadets call ``Hell Week,'' she was admitted to the infirmary with four other first-year students who became ill in the sweltering heat. Faulkner stayed in the infirmary until Friday, then called her parents to say she wanted to return home.
Faulkner said in an interview with ABC's ``PrimeTime Live'' that her fight was ``2 1/2 years of hell,'' including physical threats that made her fear for herself and her loved ones.
The interview will be broadcast tonight. by CNB