Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 29, 1990 TAG: 9003290606
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The advice is insulting.
It is insulting to:
The alumni themselves, because it assumes they're incapable of thinking and speaking for themselves in responsible fashion.
Moreover, it strongly implies that VMI's opposition to admitting women is universally supported by VMI alumni. For a hefty majority of alumni (though not of VMI faculty), that very likely is true.
But why imply that all alumni oppose coeducation at VMI, or do so for identical reasons? Why imply that VMI alumni are mindless automatons, ready to follow the party line? Why even think of asking alumni, whatever their views, not to "speak out" on a question of special interest to them and of legitimate interest to the general public?
The 6 million people of Virginia, because the advice assumes they should be content with the Gospel According to the VMI Board of Visitors and the VMI Foundation.
The people of Virginia are the owners of VMI; their taxes keep VMI alive. Yet the advice to alumni arrogantly implies that the public can be trusted to give proper consideration to the coeducation issue only if the institute itself sets the terms of the defense.
In its low regard for the public's analytical powers, the alumni letter is reminiscent of an earlier letter to VMI faculty. When faculty speak out on the issue, the earlier letter said, they should make clear they're offering their opinion and not necessarily the opinion of VMI.
But why bother to send such a letter? When VMI and the state go to court to defend against a U.S. Justice Department suit to force the admission of women, and a faculty member says he or she favors the admission of women, do VMI officials think the public is unable to discern the difference between institutional and private views?
Democracy, because the letter assumes that "shrill and meaningless shouting" is a likely consequence of unfettered speech - and, if the choice must be made, fettering speech is the preferable alternative.
It isn't, but in this instance is beside the point anyway. Rather then "meaningless shouting," the Justice Department suit has triggered the beginnings of a closer and overdue examination of VMI, and of its role in and value to the commonwealth.
In the course of that debate, there has emerged a respectable case - on pedagogical and practical grounds, as well as legal - for admitting women to VMI. There also has emerged a respectable case, on the same grounds, against forcing VMI to admit women. The latter case, not so incidentally, has been made best by VMI alumni who've chosen to "speak out."
The concept of duty, because the advice in effect urges VMI alumni to evade their responsibilities as citizens in a free society.
If a citizen believes he or she has something worthwhile to say on a matter of public importance, he or she should say take the initiative in saying it. Not to do so is to not live up to the obligations of citizenship. In an era of couch potatoes, of non-voters, of cynics, this is no trivial matter.
Clearly, most VMI alumni possess a sense of dutiful loyalty to the school, a loyalty perhaps more intense than anywhere else in the country. It shows up in VMI's alumni giving. It showed up in the apparently compliant reaction to the letter; virtually anywhere else, such advice would be met with alumni ridicule.
But the state does not operate VMI for the purpose of developing a fraternal cadre of VMI loyalists. The state operates VMI for the purpose of developing good citizens. Let's hope the advice to alumni was an aberrant glitch. If it wasn't, there are more questions to be asked about VMI than whether it should admit women.
by CNB