Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 22, 1993 TAG: 9308220091
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DALE EISMAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
That's the question U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser of Roanoke effectively has put to the governor as Kiser considers again the federal government's plea for the admission of women to Virginia Military Institute.
The judge has never held elective office, but he apparently has a cold-blooded political sense that Wilder might admire were it applied in other circumstances.
As it happens, though, Kiser is putting the governor in a spot. He insists that Wilder sign on in the next few weeks to a plan to end the four-year-old VMI controversy, probably either by admitting women to the Institute or providing VMI-style training for them somewhere else.
If he goes for coeducation, Wilder exercises power he has insisted is not his. If he embraces something less, he gives his imprimatur to a separate-but-equal admissions policy he has publicly opposed and risks the ire of activist Democratic women he'd like to recruit for his 1994 Senate race.
It doesn't help Wilder that all this comes in the midst of an election campaign in which his preferred successor, Mary Sue Terry, is trying to become Virginia's first female governor. Terry supports co-education at VMI - she could hardly do otherwise in light of her own trailblazer status - but she clearly would like to downplay the issue so as not to offend supporters in the state's largely pro-VMI business establishment.
But with Kiser set to issue an order by late September, the controversy and Terry's position are Despite his stated preference for coeducation, Wilder has not used his appointive power over the VMI board to make it happen. All 16 board members are now Wilder appointees. Their continuing opposition to coeducation tells us it wasn't important enough to him to influence their appointments. guaranteed to be front-page stuff in the hottest weeks of the campaign. Republican nominee George Allen, by the way, supports an all-male VMI.
Wilder certainly can count on the enmity of the large and still potent VMI alumni network should he tell Kiser he wants a coeducation plan. But Wilder's never been a friend of those conservative bankers, engineers, lawyers and businessmen, and it's doubtful that even his help in this fight would win many of them over, particularly in a fight next year against ex-Marines Robb and Oliver North.
Still, Wilder's choice would seem easy, particularly for a black governor who can remember the days of racially separate-but-equal schools. But Wilder, bold about protecting and extending gubernatorial authority elsewhere - he essentially fired Virginia State University's board last spring when he thought some members might cross new president Eddie N. Moore Jr. - has for some reason been restrained when it comes to VMI.
Despite his stated preference for coeducation, Wilder has not used his appointive power over the VMI board to make it happen. All 16 board members are now Wilder appointees, having either been named to or retained on the board by him; their continuing opposition to coeducation tells us it wasn't important enough to him to influence their appointments.
And though he has broad power to shape and reshape state budgets, Wilder has refused to tighten financial screws or offer financial incentives that might encourage VMI leaders to move toward admitting women.
With Kiser's order next month certain to be appealed - by the VMI board if women are ordered admitted and by the Justice Department if they're not - Wilder will depart the governorship with the issue unresolved. He will probably say he did all he could, but some will see it as an opportunity missed.
Dale Eisman is chief of this newspaper's bureau in Richmond.
by CNB