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The Virginia
Military Institute Case
What did the Supreme Court say in the "VMI case"
about publicly-funded single-sex education?
In 1991, the United States Justice Department initiated a lawsuit
against the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), which had been
a males-only college since its founding in 1839. The Justice
Department asserted that VMI, as a state school, could not legally
refuse to accept women. Although the federal District Court
initially ruled in favor of VMI, the Circuit Court, on appeal,
agreed with the Justice Department: the state of Virginia could
not fund a single-sex public college for men as long as there
was no comparable state school for women.
The Circuit Court offered three remedies: either 1) begin accepting
women at VMI, or 2) stop accepting state funds, or 3) develop
a "comparable" alternative for women. VMI and the
state of Virginia chose the third option. They created the "Virginia
Women's Institute for Leadership," to be located at Mary
Baldwin College, a private college for women. The Circuit Court
approved the alternative, but the United States Justice Department
didn't like it, so the case was appealed to the Supreme Court.
On June 26, 1996, the Supreme Court issued its decision. The
Court concluded that the Baldwin program was not comparable
to the program at VMI. VMI offered advanced courses and degrees
in engineering, computer science, and physics, none of which
were available at Baldwin. VMI had better-trained and better-paid
academic faculty with more advanced degrees. VMI had basketball,
soccer, and lacrosse fields, a swimming pool, indoor and outdoor
rifle ranges, an obstacle course, martial arts facilities, a
large indoor track, and a football stadium. Baldwin had just
two "all-purpose" fields and one indoor gym.
VMI and the state of Virginia argued that the Baldwin program
was comparable to VMI, because the state subsidy per student
was the same for both VMI and the Baldwin program: $7400 per
student. However, VMI had 1,300 cadets, while the Baldwin program
had only 40 students. Even with the special additional monies
scheduled to be given to the Baldwin program under the scheme
proposed by Virginia, the Court estimated that over ten years,
VMI would gain $220 million vs. $35 million for the woman's
program at Mary Baldwin (see p. 37 of the
majority opinion).
The Court's majority opinion stressed that what was problematic
in this case was not single-sex education per se, but the absence
of a truly comparable opportunity for women. "Single-sex
education affords pedagogical benefits to at least some students,"
the majority opinion affirmed. "That reality is uncontested
in this litigation" (see page 18 of the
majority opinion).
In a concurring opinion, Chief Justice Rehnquist emphasized
that "Had Virginia made a genuine effort to devote comparable
public resources to a facility for women, and followed through
on such a plan, it might well have avoided an equal protection
violation. . . There was single-sex public education available
for men at VMI, but no corresponding single-sex public education
available to women. . . It is not the exclusion of women that
violates the Equal Protection Clause, but the maintenance of
an all-men school without providing any -- much less a comparable
-- institution for women." Rehnquist summarized the constitutional
requirements for publicly-funded single-sex schools when he
said that the State must show ". . . that its interest
in educating men in a single-sex environment is matched by its
interest in educating women in a single-sex institution. To
demonstrate such, the State does not need to create two institutions
with the same number of faculty PhD's, similar SAT scores, or
comparable athletic fields. Nor would it necessarily require
that the women's institution offer the same curriculum as the
men's; one could be strong in computer science, the other could
be strong in liberal arts. It would be a sufficient remedy,
I think, if the two institutions offered the same quality of
education and were of the same overall calibre." (See page
9 of Chief
Justice Rehnquist's concurrence.)
Contrary to a widespread misunderstanding, the Supreme Court's
opinion in this case does not "outlaw" single-sex
public education. The crucial test for the Court is whether
or not truly comparable programs exist for both sexes.
What does "comparable" mean? As the majority opinion
made clear, and as Justice Rehnquist stressed in his concurrence,
"comparable" does not mean "identical."
The Court found the program at Mary Baldwin college to be not
comparable to the VMI program, not because VMI had a football
stadium etc. and Mary Baldwin didn't, but because the difference
in funding was so large.
Bottom line: "comparable" means "costing about
the same amount of money." And that means the same TOTAL
amount of money, not the same amount of money per student. If
the state is going to spend $200 million on single-sex education
for boys, then the state must spend about $200 million on single-sex
education for girls, even if fewer girls choose a single-sex
program. Or vice versa.
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