ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 19, 1996 TAG: 9601190074
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LEXINGTON
SOURCE: DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS NOTE: Above
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on January 26, 1996.
Overall private donations to Virginia Military Institute increased
from $7.9 million in 1989 to $9.2 million in 1995 after the Justice
Department challenged VMI's male-only admission policy. A story last
Friday gave incomplete figures.
Virginia Military Institute's six-year struggle to keep women out has cost alumni more than $14 million - money that could have helped offset tuition that nearly doubled as state financial support waned.
``That's spending power we've lost,'' said David Prasnicki, treasurer of the VMI Foundation who added up the bills stemming from the lawsuit. The foundation is a private alumni association.
After two federal court trials and two rounds in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, VMI argued its case for remaining all-male before the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday. A decision is expected in July.
Tom Gentry, a VMI graduate and the most senior faculty member, called the total cost of using six law firms in five states and a Madison Avenue public relations firm ``staggering.''
``I deplore spending that much money on this,'' said Gentry, an English professor who supports the effort to allow women to enroll in the corps of cadets. ``I feel the money could have been better spent in other ways.''
VMI Superintendent Josiah Bunting III said the money, time and energy devoted to defending the admissions policy is justified.
``We think it is worthwhile,'' Bunting said. ``We consider the all-maleness to be an important part of this institution. We have satisfied the courts up to this point in helping create and sustain a strong alternative program for women.''
VMI's alumni associations spent $5.5 million in legal fees and nearly $1 million in public relations fees defending the sex discrimination lawsuit from March 1990 through 1995. Prasnicki expected to receive another $250,000 in legal bills this year.
``That $6.5 million would be $10 million now in our endowment,'' Prasnicki said, referring to the interest the $6.5 million would have earned.
The VMI Foundation also has pledged $6.9 million to endow the state's alternative to admitting women to VMI, the Virginia Women's Institute of Leadership at Mary Baldwin College. The foundation has paid $465,000 to launch the program, which enrolled 42 women in the fall.
The endowment is allocating $22,760 a month to the program at Mary Baldwin. If the Supreme Court rules against VMI, Mary Baldwin will get at least part of the monthly payments for four years, with the amount depending on enrollment.
Gov. George Allen supports the all-male policy. Attorney General Jim Gilmore and his deputy, William Hurd, have made defending VMI ``a top priority, and one of the top three cases they worked on,'' Gilmore spokesman Mark Miner said. Gilmore and Hurd have spent a ``significant amount of time'' on the case, but records are not kept on how many hours they log on individual cases, Miner said.
State funds were used to compensate them for travel and accommodations in Roanoke during the second round in U.S. District Court and in Washington for the Supreme Court arguments, Miner said.
Since the legal war began in March 1990, the state's financial support of VMI has fallen 12 percent, according to state records. VMI records show that the quality of students has declined and some faculty members say morale has suffered.
While Bunting said most alumni and cadets support remaining all-male, a survey shortly after the lawsuit was filed showed that 60 percent of the faculty were in favor of admitting women.
``The morale is about as low as it's ever been,'' said a longtime faculty member who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
``I do think there is a general feeling of malaise,'' said math professor Gordon Williams.
But Prasnicki and Bunting said the cost of admitting women would be much higher.
``Donations to the school would drop very sharply and immediately,'' Bunting said.
VMI's alumni associations could lose nearly $40 million of their $170 million endowment because the money is restricted to funding scholarships for young men, he said. A dispute over that issue likely would be decided in court as well, Bunting said.
Gentry was skeptical of the estimate.
``I don't believe they [alumni] are going to abandon the school in droves, but who knows?'' Gentry said. ``The school has a very high degree of loyalty. I don't think in the long run it's going to make any difference.''
Bunting and VMI Foundation officials acknowledge that the $40 million is a rough estimate, and they could not say how many alumni wills have such restrictions or give specific examples.
Prasnicki said many alumni wills direct the money elsewhere if women are admitted. That includes alumni who are still alive and have sent their wills to VMI during pledge drives.
The trend of making bequests to VMI on the condition that it remain all-male increased in the 1970s when private men's colleges and the military academies began to admit women, Prasnicki said.
In the 1980s, 60 percent of the donations to VMI were unrestricted. Now, unrestricted donations have ``fallen to almost zero,'' he said.
Overall private giving has decreased from $2.8 million in 1989 to $2.2 million last year, Prasnicki said. State funding, meanwhile, fell from $10.9 million in 1989-90 to $8.8 million in 1992-93, and rebounded to $9.5 million in 1995-96.
Tuition has doubled, from $4,590 in 1983-84 to more than $9,000 now, for Virginia residents. Out-of-state tuition is even higher, and the number of cadets from outside Virginia has dropped 37 percent during that time because of it.
Without the legal expenses, the foundation would have been able to hold down tuition, Prasnicki acknowledged.
The number of applicants, the percentage of applicants accepted, the percentage of high school honor students accepted and SAT scores have all steadily fallen in the past six years, according to VMI records.
A comparison of the cadet classes that entered in 1988-89 and the one that entered last fall shows:
Applications decreased from 1,228 to 902, and enrollment declined from 1,285 to 1,196;
The percentage of students accepted has gone from 62 percent to 79 percent;
The mean SAT score has dropped from 1060 to 1020, and the percentage of cadets who were in the top quarter of their high school class has declined from 49 percent to 33 percent.
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