THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 27, 1996 TAG: 9606270367
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALLISON BLAKE, LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
LENGTH: 152 lines
In a strongly worded opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-1 Wednesday that the all-male Virginia Military Institute must admit women or give up public funds.
``The constitutional violation in this case is the categorical exclusion of women, in disregard of their individual merit, from an extraordinary educational opportunity afforded men,'' Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority. ``. . . Women seeking and fit for a VMI-quality education cannot be offered anything less, under the state's obligation to afford them genuinely equal protection.''
She called the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership - set up at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton last fall as a separate-but-equal alternative to admitting women - ``a pale shadow of VMI in terms of the range of curricular choices and faculty stature, funding prestige, alumni support and influence.''
The Supreme Court's lone dissenter was Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote: ``Today the court shuts down an institution that has served the people of the commonwealth of Virginia with pride and distinction for over a century and a half. I do not think any of us, women included, will be better off for its destruction,''
Justice Clarence Thomas did not take part in the case because his son, Jamal, is a cadet at VMI.
While the decision does not directly order VMI to admit women if it stays public, it is so tightly worded that no other conclusion can be reached, lawyers said Wednesday.
Neal Devins, professor of law at the College of William and Mary, said he wasn't surprised by the court's lopsided vote: ``When you have explicit segregation, bells and whistles go off. It's very consistent with what the court has done,'' including its landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision, which said a system of separate public schools for whites and blacks was unconstitutional.
``They don't want segregation in education, whether it's race segregation or gender segregation.''
And, Devins said, the VMI ruling doesn't contradict the court's recent decision striking down majority-black voting districts. ``What the court is saying is, we don't want to draw any lines on the basis of race and gender.''
The decision was a blow to VMI, a 157-year-old school that had struggled in the courts for more than six years to keep its all-male status.
``Many alumni will be heartbroken when they hear it,'' VMI Superintendent Josiah Bunting III said. ``This is not a case of an alumni body wanting to remain exclusive by keeping people out, but rather wanting to hang on to something that made a great difference in their lives.
``We have argued the case for single-gender instruction at VMI nobly, carefully, and I think we made our point as well as it could be made. We fought the good fight.''
Virginia alumni reacted glumly to the news. Robert Patterson, a 1949 graduate and Richmond lawyer who led the legal team defending VMI in the lower courts, said, ``I think the results of the majority opinion will almost be a national tragedy before it's over.''
George G. Phillips Jr., past president of the VMI Foundation and chairman of Henderson & Phillips, a Norfolk insurance brokerage, said, ``It's a very sad day for educational opportunities in general.''
``You have eliminated the ability to have a tax-supported option for single-sex education,'' said Phillips, a 1960 graduate who is also vice chairman of the State Council of Higher Education. ``The Supreme Court has seen fit to . . . relegate that option to private schools, which takes it out of the realm of possibility for many of the state's citizens from a financial point of view.''
Others praised the ruling.
Renee Olander, a Norfolk resident who graduated from Mary Baldwin in 1984, says she knows the value of single-sex education. But she applauded the court's decision.
``I think it's time for a school that has certainly had a lot of privilege in a lot of ways to recognize that its system, as it is, is not just,'' said Olander, an Old Dominion University advising director who is a former president of the Southeastern Virginia Women's Political Caucus. ``I think it's a terrible inequity that state funding was so disproportionate for a school that has an exclusive admission policy.''
U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said in a statement: ``The Supreme Court has given life to the promise in the Constitution that all of us deserve an equal shot at educational opportunity.''
Many women's advocates were also elated.
``We see this as a great victory,'' said Judy Appelbaum, senior counsel for the National Women's Law Center in Washington. The decision means ``a public institution can't slam the door of opportunity shut based on stereotypes and overgeneralizations about what women can and cannot do.''
Appelbaum, like other lawyers, said she believed the decision would also require The Citadel in Charleston, S.C. - the only other all-male public military college - to admit women.
VMI gets about $10.5 million a year from the state, said Dan Hix, senior finance coordinator for the State Council of Higher Education. It gets about $5,000 per full-time student - more, Hix said, than any other nondoctoral college in Virginia.
VMI's Board of Visitors is scheduled to meet July 11 to 13 to decide what to do. Gov. George F. Allen said in a statement that he would consult with state Attorney General James Gilmore, VMI alumni and the General Assembly to ``determine an appropriate course of action. . . . The nation's highest court has spoken, and we need to bring Virginia into compliance.''
What happens next remains cloudy.
Speculation Wednesday centered on the possibility of going private, which would cost millions of dollars. But Bill Berry, the rector of VMI's Board of Visitors, said it was just one alternative the board will consider next month.
The school would not want to go private if it were not certain of succeeding, said Edwin ``Pete'' Cox, president of the Alumni Association.
``We don't want to do anything out of, call it spite . . . as though `I'm going to pick up my blocks and go home.' That attitude is not present,'' Cox said.
If VMI chose to stay public and admit women, it probably would not cost taxpayers a lot to accommodate them, said Gordon K. Davies, director of the State Council of Higher Education.
``I think one of the major challenges would be to ensure a sufficient number of women at the institute to make their lives viable so they could, for instance, participate in intercollegiate athletics,'' he said.
The VMI ruling reversed a 1995 ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the program at private Mary Baldwin was a suitable alternative to admitting women to VMI. Last fall, 42 women enrolled in VWIL.
Erin Reavis, an 18-year-old graduate of Kemspville High School in Virginia Beach, was one of them. She acknowledged that, as Ginsburg said, the VWIL program at Mary Baldwin wasn't equal to VMI.
``But I'm learning the best I can in VWIL,'' she said. ``They expect a lot of us, and we have to keep in shape.'' The physical regimen, she said, includes a mile-and-a-half run, 60 sit-ups in two minutes and 28 push-ups in two minutes.
She said she doubted many women would end up going to VMI. ``This is more conducive to us,'' she said. ``It's a group of women who support each other, who don't bring each other down. It's not a rat line.'' MEMO: Staff writer Philip Walzer and The Associated Press contributed to
this story. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
Color photos
THE OPINION
``Women seeking and fit for a VMI-quality education cannot be
offered anything less, under the state's obligation to afford them
genuinely equal protection...'' - Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg
VMI's REACTION
``This is a savage disappointment for the alumni. Many alumni
will be heartbroken when they hear it...'' - VMI Superintendent
Josiah Bunting
WHAT'S NEXT
VMI'S governing body meets July 11-13. It may consider making VMI
private as a way to stay all-male. But this would require state
support and millions of dollars - and both Governor George F. Allen
and Attorney General Jim Gilmore said the state would comply with
the court ruling. If VMI remains state-supported, no women could be
enrolled before the fall of 1997. -
TEXT OF DECISION
The full text of the decision is available through the News page
of Pilot Online at
http://www.pilotonline.com/
KEYWORDS: MILITARY ACADEMIES VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE
U.S. SUPREME COURT RULING by CNB