Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 10, 1990 TAG: 9006100268
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Landmark News Service
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
"All the guys were standing around like college freshmen checking out the new stuff," said Guthrie, a hint of exasperation lacing her clipped, fast-paced speech.
Guthrie's response, typical of a woman who sees life as an unending stream of issues and actions, was to help found the Virginia Law Women. The group pressed the dean to step up admission of women and toured the state to recruit applicants. By the time Guthrie graduated in 1974, the gender gap was 5-to-1.
For some who have followed Guthrie's career, there is no small irony in the fact that the one-time campus feminist, now 40, has gone on to become the deputy attorney general heading the state's defense of the males-only admission policy at the Virginia Military Institute.
The U.S. Justice Department is seeking to end VMI's distinction as one of only two state-supported institutions in the nation that excludes women. Guthrie is the lead attorney on the case from the office of Virginia Attorney General Mary Sue Terry, which represents VMI.
The specter of prominent women defending VMI's 150-year-old tradition has piqued national curiosity, figuring into an NBC "Today Show" appearance by Terry and interviews on CBS and the Fox network by Guthrie.
But the subject prompts a shrug by Guthrie and a quick digression to the merits of the state's case.
"People seem to find my role in this interesting," she said. "My definition of newsworthy does not include this."
The closest Guthrie will come to hinting at her personal position on the case is to allow that she believes single-sex institutions have a role in higher education.
"I've always felt there was a value in single-gender education," said Guthrie, who in the early 1980s spent a year as interim president of Chatham College, an all-women's school in Pittsburgh. "It's hard to argue that women should have that choice and men not."
Beyond that generalization, though, "it isn't appropriate for any lawyer to express openly a personal view on any case or really to form one," she said.
What she also finds inappropriate, Guthrie makes clear, is any implication that gender would influence her legal opinions. Asked by the CBS interviewer, "Woman to woman, how do you feel about this case?" she shot back, "Woman to woman, I'm offended for you to ask that question."
"I thought that was real sexist," she recalled.
If Guthrie's role in the VMI case surprises some, it is not the only paradox in her portfolio.
Described by friends as energetic, opinionated and smart, all three in the extreme, Guthrie has cut a swath of accomplishment through state courts and the General Assembly since becoming Terry's deputy for human and natural resources 4 1/2 years ago.
She commands 40 attorneys, the most among Terry's four deputies, and has handled or supervised many of the hottest cases facing the office: the attack on Ford Motor Co. over defective ambulances, the 1986 athletic-department scandal at Virginia Tech, the closing of the environmentally hazardous Avtex Fibers plant in Front Royal, the successful attempt to close the Kim-Stan landfill near Clifton Forge, and VMI. Successes in the Assembly include pushing for tough laws governing oil spills and waste management.
Along the way, Guthrie has developed a reputation as a straight shooter.
Del. Thomas Forehand, D-Chesapeake, was astounded when Guthrie, soon after her arrival in Richmond, interrupted reporters who were interviewing him to challenge his position on an education bill. "She jumped in and started arguing with me, and that became the story," recalled Forehand.
Today, he respects the fact that Guthrie is "tough, well-prepared, bright, and not going to take any guff off anybody." But for a while, "I didn't cross the street to say hello," he said.
Friends know her, too, as someone with a flair for fashion and appreciation of a good time. She and Del. Glenn Croshaw of Virginia Beach, a law school classmate, won an informal, after-hours dance contest during a recent Assembly session.
However, those who peg Guthrie as high-powered and a workaholic miss a far different part of her personality. Friends say Guthrie, daughter of a retired four-star Army general and eldest of six children, is devoted to her parents, who live in Annandale, and siblings - including Peter, a savant who was the primary model for actor Dustin Hoffman in the movie "Rain Man."
In a family of achievers, compassion was fostered by the idiosyncrasies of a mentally handicapped brother who never cried until he was 2, greeted his siblings' friends with questions such as "What's your shoe size?" and who can recite the names and birth dates of the 600 Japanese sumo wrestlers.
Asked to describe Peter, Guthrie rolls her eyes with humor born of her parents' lifetime insistence that he be treated normally. "He's weird," she said, then added that through him, she learned "key lessons about tolerance, accepting responsibility and investment in others as well as self."
A few years out of law school and working as legal counsel at Princeton University, Guthrie insisted that her brother come to live with her, partially to give her parents a break. They shared quarters for about 18 months while he established himself in a job he still holds at Princeton library.
Unusually accomplished, in light of his disability, Peter Guthrie was tapped as one of three models for Hoffman, who thanked Peter by name in accepting an Oscar for his performance.
Guthrie's brother was not her only influence in developing an intolerance for discrimination.
Her father, John, whose career took the family from Claire's birthplace in London to Key West, Fla.; Northern Virginia, Hawaii and back to the Washington area during her childhood, received several citations for his commitment to affirmative action.
From her mother, Rebecca, Guthrie said, she inherited a "pragmatism, an acceptance of the way things are." From her father came a passion for debating issues ("If someone starts a discussion and they take one side of an issue, I'll take the other, because that's the way I learn"), an office so cluttered it could fuel a recycling plant for a week, and a respect for professional responsibilities.
John Guthrie was opposed to placing women in combat, a position his eldest daughter once debated with him. But as head of Army procurement in his last active-duty assignment, he made certain that specifications on combat weapons were drawn to accommodate women, in case Army policy changed.
Similarly, Claire Guthrie said, when Terry asked her last year to assess whether VMI had a viable legal defense for its males-only policy, personal opinion had no role in her analysis. She developed a team of respected associates, including John Jeffries, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Virginia; David Lascell, chairman of the board of all-female Wells College in Aurora, N.Y., and Linda Lorimer, president of Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg.
The consensus was that a three-pronged argument could be made:
First, that there is a value in single-sex education.
Second, that higher education is a private-public partnership in Virginia and it is important to avoid "unnecessary duplication" between the two.
Third, that within the state's system, women are afforded all the opportunities available to men.
"It's our intention to show that there's nothing VMI offers that can't be gained elsewhere," she said.
Is that the view of Guthrie the deputy attorney general or Guthrie the individual?
"I think that's her personal position," speculated her father.
"I'd almost be willing to bet that's not her position," said Del. Croshaw.
Claire Guthrie laughed, dismissing all speculation. "As a professional, I make decisions that are in the best interests of my client," she said.
In the days ahead, she added, her "undivided loyalty" will be to the men of VMI.
by CNB