The future of single-sex education - Virginia Military Institute case

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Jan, 1997 by D. Grier Stephenson, Jr.

June 26, 1996, marked the end of six years of courtroom conflict, In U.S. v. Virginia, the Supreme Court held that Virginia Military Institute (VMI), a state-supported institution, no longer may exclude women from its student body. The decision significantly has narrowed the boundaries of allowable educational diversity.

VMI's six-year war had two distinct campaigns. The Justice Department fired the first shots in March, 1990, when it sued VMI and the Commonwealth of Virginia after a female high school student complained to the Attorney General about the school's male only admission policy. The government argued that the institution violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and sought an order directing VMI to admit women and cease from otherwise discriminating on the basis of sex.

The government's case seemed strong be cause of a 1982 decision by the Supreme Court. In its first look at single-sex admission policies, the Court held five to four that the nursing school at Mississippi University for Women (MUW) no longer could admit women only, even though the state also operated two coeducational nursing schools. Single-sex admission at a public professional school was constitutionally acceptable solely on the basis of "exceedingly persuasive justification," under which gender classifications had to further an important governmental objective and be directly or closely related to that objective. Such "heightened scrutiny" is usually, but not always, lethal to the challenged policy, unlike the even tougher "strict scrutiny" that nearly always is ("strict in theory, fatal in fact," as more than one justice has confessed). For the majority, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor explained that the state's policy lacked sufficient justification, besides, a nursing school exclusively for women reinforced stereotypes about nursing as a woman's profession.

The Mississippi case presented a formidable obstacle for VMI, but this was not the first time the school had faced long odds. On May 15, 1864, 247, cadets from VMI had helped to defeat seasoned Union troops at New Market, Va. Now, the Federal government seemed prepared to exact expiation.

In the first skirmish, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia ruled in June, 1991, against the government. Virginia passed the test that Mississippi had failed. That conclusion followed from the nature of the education VMI offered.

For its 1,300 undergraduates, VMI's pro gram is grounded in the "adversative method." Once common in U.S. military institutions, but today probably unique to VMI, this teaching system combines physical rigor, mental stress, absolute equality of treatment, absence of privacy, minute regulation of behavior, and indoctrination in values. The goal is a graduating class of citizen-soldiers who excel in leadership. Unlike most colleges, where the library, classrooms, and laboratories are central and the residence halls are secondary, the most important aspects of the VMI educational experience center on the barracks, where all cadets live for their entire college career.

According to the district court, the barracks regimen with its "rat system" set VMI apart. Freshmen (called fourth-classmen) are the rats whom upperclassmen treat miserably for their first months at VMI. Being punished or rewarded for the sins or accomplishments of brother rats, as well as for one's own, is intended to build class solidarity as well as individual responsibility. Those who survive life in the rat line feel both a sense of success and a bonding to their fellow sufferers and former tormentors. These afflictions are relieved only by the "dike system" that promotes cross-class bonding and early indoctrination into the honor code and other traditions of VMI.

Life in the rat line is reflected in the ambiance of the barracks, which are purposefully stark and unattractive, with a total absence of privacy. Ventilation is poor. Furniture is unappealing. In short, conditions are spartan. The setting induces stress, enforces discipline, erases most signs of individuality, and inculcates egalitatianism. Given these deprivations, VMI's corps of cadets probably is the most self-selected student body in the world.

In the district judge's eyes, admitting women would require changes in the VMI regimen. Thus, the very thing prospective female students sought would be altered, diminished, or perhaps destroyed by their presence. Besides, military training for women already was available at other coeducational public universities across Virginia, including Virginia Polytechnic Institute in nearby Blacksburg.

In 1992, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit rejected the district court's conclusion. Virginia had "failed to articulate an important policy that substantially supports offering the unique benefits of a VMI-type education to men and not to women," the court ruled, so its admission policy violated the equal protection clause. The appeals court nonetheless declined to order the admission of women to VMI. In stead, it remanded the case back with instructions that the state be given a chance to develop a plan that passed constitutional muster. This second courtroom skirmish ended the first campaign and left VMI's fate in doubt.