THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 25, 1996 TAG: 9609250411
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVID REED, ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG, VA. LENGTH: 63 lines
Kathy Kreye pictured herself sitting in a barber's chair at Virginia Military Institute and watching in a mirror as her long, curly blond hair was sheared away. She could handle that.
``It would grow back - no big deal,'' she said Tuesday during a lunch break at Christiansburg High School.
She couldn't handle the hostility, harassment and threats she has incurred since she said in a newspaper interview that she wanted to be among the first women to attend VMI, which for 157 years has been male-only.
About three weeks ago, she was sitting in her Camaro at a stoplight when a beat-up, blue pickup truck pulled up beside her. A man with a scruffy beard rolled down the window and started cursing at her, she said.
``He was telling me, how could I even think about going to VMI. He said I was going to get killed and all that stuff,'' she said. ``I was so scared I wanted to run the light - I was just shaking.''
The 17-year-old has abandoned her goal of attending VMI and has decided to attend Virginia Tech instead.
Kreye was one of several girls interviewed Tuesday who have expressed a desire to attend VMI.
VMI's Board of Visitors voted 9-8 Saturday to admit women after the Supreme Court ruled in June that the state-owned school cannot keep women out. Hours after the vote, VMI mailed applications and brochures to 67 women who had inquired about enrolling.
VMI had battled in court since the Justice Department sued in 1990 to challenge the school's all-male admission policy. In a concession to women, VMI provided $4 million to endow a military-style leadership program that began last year at Mary Baldwin College, a private women's school in Staunton.
Jahaira Pichardo was hassled by some of her classmates at Franklin Military School in Richmond after she inquired at VMI last year about enrolling. VMI referred her to Mary Baldwin and the VWIL program.
``I didn't want to go to Mary Baldwin, I wanted to go to VMI,'' said Pichardo, 16, a junior at the city-owned school for students who want a military-style environment. ``I think the discipline and curriculum that VMI has, it's something very different.''
Some girls, however, said they are wary of VMI's insistence that women meet the same physical demands and wear the same uniforms as men. VMI intends to billet women in barracks just as spartan as the men's without locks on the doors. The school will put curtains on the windows for the first time, but allow cadets to draw them only when they are dressing.
``They're only saying that so women get scared and not join,'' said Cheryl Clements, 17, the battalion commander of West Potomac High School's Junior ROTC program.
``Even though we do want to be accepted equally, we do have different physiques than men,'' said Pichardo. ``Some females can do it, and I'm confident in myself, but I think they should ease up. . . . I think they're being sore losers.''
Amanda Valine, 15, a sophomore cadet in First Colonial High School's junior Navy ROTC program in Virginia Beach, said VMI's tough reputation does not scare her.
``I want to show that we're not afraid to go to an all-male school, that we're just as good and probably better,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Kathy Kreye by CNB