THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 19, 1996 TAG: 9601190623
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
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. 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 on 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.
VMI Superintendent Josiah Bunting III said the money, time and energy devoted to defending the admissions policy is justified.
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 an 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, enrolling 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 James 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, records show. 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.
``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. by CNB