Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 31, 1990 TAG: 9005310436
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In papers filed Friday requesting a summary judgment, federal attorneys said "it is undisputed that women are excluded from admission to VMI," and pointed to the school's stated policies and recent governing board decisions to bolster their case.
The Justice Department also said maintaining the diversity of Virginia's higher education system - as state Attorney General Mary Sue Terry has argued - "is not an `important state interest' sufficient to pass constitutional muster."
"It is one thing for the state to accommodate diverse modes of private education in its funding," the papers say. "It is something quite different for the state itself to bar women from public institutions because of their gender."
Bert Rohrer, a spokesman for Terry, said late Wednesday: "We've got 10 days to respond to that and I think the appropriate thing to do would be to respond to that in court."
The Justice Department's motion for summary judgment says "it is quite clear that [VMI is] offering educational diversity, not to all the citizens of the commonwealth, but to males only."
"Male students may attend any school in the commonwealth. Female students are foreclosed from such access to equal educational opportunity," the government argues.
"Even if `separate but equal' were a defense here, [VMI] cannot contend successfully that there are separate but equal educational opportunities for women in Virginia, where the . . . facts amply demonstrate that VMI offers unique educational opportunities to males only."
In March, the Justice Department filed a sex-discrimination lawsuit against the 150-year-old military school, saying its admissions policy violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 14th Amendment.
Anticipating the federal suit, Terry and attorneys for the VMI Foundation Inc., the private fund-raising arm of the school's alumni association, asked Kiser in February to declare VMI's admissions policy legal and constitutional.
Wednesday, attorneys for the foundation added another plaintiff - VMI's 11,000-member alumni association - to its complaint against the Justice Department.
And in questions mailed over the holiday weekend, foundation attorneys also have asked the Justice Department to describe what it would ask the judge to order VMI to do if its admissions policy were declared illegal.
The foundation is seeking a description of the program envisioned to recruit female students, the scope of modifications to campus buildings to accommodate women and the remedies to "the alleged discriminatory policies and practices of VMI."
Next week, Kiser is scheduled to consider several motions in the VMI case, including whether Gov. Douglas Wilder should be dismissed from the sex-discrimination suit. But the judge is not scheduled to hear the Justice Department's motion for summary judgment.
by CNB