
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 23, 1993                   TAG: 9304230205
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VMI GETS SUPPORT ON HIGH COURT APPEAL FROM FAR-FLUNG PLACES

The Virginia Military Institute has garnered support from the former president of the Detroit Board of Education and the former chairman of the Detroit Urban League in its fight to keep out women.

Frank F. Hayden and Oscar W. King III joined Women for VMI and the Women's Washington Issues Network in a friend-of-the-court brief this week, urging the Supreme Court to review a federal appeals court decision on VMI's single-sex admissions policy.

Hayden headed a committee that two years ago recommended establishing three all-male academies in the Detroit public school system. The academies were designed to address the academic and social problems of inner-city young men.

The plans were challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union in Michigan, which filed a lawsuit to block the proposal. A federal district court ruled against the academies on grounds of sex discrimination and prohibited the Detroit Board of Education from following through with them. The board then dropped the idea.

Hayden and King "were interested in this issue," said Theodore Olson, a Washington lawyer who filed the brief. "They felt that the capacity to experiment, by either cities or states or local government officials, is intimidated if anything they do that isn't exactly identical for men and women is unconstitutional."

Three friend-of-the-court briefs now have been filed on VMI's behalf, two of them from seven women's college, including Hollins. The colleges last month asked the high court to use the case to uphold the constitutionality of single-sex education for women.

Olson said each of the parties who filed the latest brief "believe that the Supreme Court should take this case because of the importance of the issues women and men."

"They urged the court to carefully consider the straightjacket that the Fourth Circuit decision might put states in," he said.

Anne Marie Whittemore, an attorney with the Richmond law firm representing VMI, said she was not aware of any encouragement by VMI to get Hayden and King to join in filing the brief. Neither Hayden nor King could be reached for comment.

"But we've always felt and urged that this case goes much beyond VMI," Whittemore said. "I can understand those who have similar concern about implications of this case."

In a 20-page brief, Hayden, King and the two women's organizations argued that the Fourth Circuit decision "establishes a new and unwarranted standard for the review of educational services that are provided by the government on a single-sex basis."

If the decision is allowed to stand, states "will soon abandon any effort to provide for the particularized needs of its citizens," they contend.

by CNB