Supreme Court Stays Woman’s Going to Citadel

The gates of The Citadel opened just long enough Wednesday for Shannon Faulkner to register as the first female to attend day classes with cadets, then closed again when the nation’s top judge blocked her from attending classes.

At the request of the 151-year-old military college, Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist granted a stay to keep the 18-year-old student from attending classes today.

“The significance is not so much that the injunction has been delayed for three or four days. The significance is that the Supreme Court is taking this issue very seriously,” said Dawes Cooke, the school’s attorney.

The Citadel and Virginia Military Institute are the nation’s only all-male, state-supported military colleges. Admissions policies at both are the target of federal lawsuits.

Faulkner, who plans to major in education, walked several hundred yards through a driving rain and a horde of reporters to register Wednesday in Bond Hall, the turreted administration building that dominates one end of The Citadel’s parade ground.

“I didn’t expect all of this and I didn’t really expect to be here,” Faulkner said as she advanced through the crowd to meet her academic adviser, register and pay tuition. “I actually expected the battle to be a lot longer.”

She said she was treated nicely by college officials and signed up for biology, math, English, history and education. But she said she felt “overwhelmed” by the attention.

“Everybody is saying, ‘You’re making history,’ ” she said.

Although cadets promised to treat her with respect, some were hoping for a last-minute reprieve.

“We don’t want the Class of 1994 to be labeled as the year of Shannon Faulkner,” senior Will Benton said.

Faulkner initially was accepted by the college after she had references to her gender deleted from her high school transcript. The Citadel rejected her application when it discovered she was a woman. She sued, challenging the constitutionality of the all-male admissions policy

Last August, a federal judge said Faulkner could attend classes, but not join the corps of cadets, while her lawsuit proceeds. The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to overturn the order.

Faulkner, who is from Powdersville, S.C., said she would like to become a full-fledged member of the grey-uniformed corps of cadets within a year of starting classes.

“I don’t think you can get the full Citadel experience without being a cadet,” she said.

Since Faulkner sued, five incidents of vandalism have been directed against her and her family--the most recent when vandals poured sand, rotten eggs and spoiled food on her car.