Class-Action Citadel Case to Be Sought : Education: Faulkner’s lawyers say at least two other women want to attend all-male military college. The trailblazer’s case goes on without her.

Shannon Faulkner has stepped aside, but now her lawyers are trying to assemble new female recruits to storm the walls of The Citadel, South Carolina’s all-male military college.

Faulkner has been hailed as a heroine by feminist groups for temporarily integrating the school. But the court ruling that opened The Citadel’s doors specifically benefited her--it did not require that other women be admitted. The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has even allowed the state to proceed with plans to create a parallel all-female college program off campus.

“She opened [the door] for herself but not for anyone else,” said M. Dawes Cooke Jr., The Citadel’s attorney.

Now Faulkner’s attorneys are preparing to request that U.S. District Judge C. Weston Houck make her case a class-action lawsuit to benefit other women who want to attend the state-supported school.

“This was never strictly a Shannon Faulkner case,” said Robert Black, one of Faulkner’s attorneys. “She was not doing this just for herself.” He said the court, however, had not ruled on a previous request for class-action status.

Since the 20-year-old Faulkner dropped out Friday, complaining of the stress and isolation, two women have come forward who want to attend the school, said Black. In addition, he said, attorneys are talking to a third woman who may be interested.

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“Everybody’s been sitting on the sidelines,” waiting for Faulkner to blaze the trail, said Suzanne Coe, another of Faulkner’s attorneys. “Now that Shannon’s not out front, they’re realizing that they’ve got to do it for themselves.”

She said papers naming the women as interveners might be filed as early as today, although Black said he prefers moving more slowly. “We have to be sure these young women know what they’re doing,” he said.

The lawsuit against The Citadel continues, even without Faulkner, because the U.S. Justice Department entered the case as an intervener after Faulkner filed. The school has appealed the decision to admit Faulkner, and lawyers for both sides have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in the fall. The court also is being asked to consider a similar case in Virginia against the Virginia Military Institute. Both schools hope to remain all-male by creating parallel programs for women.

The first class to enter the Virginia alternative began orientation Tuesday at women-only Mary Baldwin College.

In South Carolina, the state is creating a women’s program at Converse College, a private single-gender school in Spartanburg, S.C. Twenty-three women have pre-enrolled. “The court of appeals ruled in April that The Citadel would never have to admit women except for Shannon Faulkner if the state of South Carolina implements and gains court approval for a parallel program for women,” Cooke said.

Special provisions were made for Faulkner because the court found that she as an individual had been denied equal treatment. The court found merit, however, in the concept of single-gender education if comparable programs were offered for men and women.

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South Carolina’s all-female program, which is being subsidized by the state, would provide ROTC training but would not attempt to re-create the rigorous military training of The Citadel. “The emphasis,” Cooke said, “is on leadership training.”

A hearing is scheduled Nov. 6 to consider whether the program meets the court’s requirement that it be “substantively comparable” to the 153-year-old military school, which has produced many of the state’s top political and business leaders.

Faulkner’s attorneys acknowledged that publicity over the stress, threats and sense of isolation Faulkner said she suffered during her 2 1/2-year fight to enter the school may discourage other women from coming forward.

“It doesn’t take a terribly sophisticated person to see that you cannot survive in a community of hate,” Black said. “The trick is, you’ve got to have numbers to force The Citadel to behave.”

Earlier, Faulkner and her lawyers had decided not to dwell publicly on the hardships, he said, in part because Faulkner “wanted to fit in with the cadets and not be a whiner.” But now, he said, the issues have changed. “It’s become an issue of why women fail at traditionally male roles,” he said. “They fail because the cards are stacked against them.”

While the school, under court order, adopted a policy banning harassment of Faulkner, her lawyers say she continued to receive death threats and hateful comments on the street. They also accused the school of deliberately taking steps to increase her sense of isolation and make it hard for her to remain on campus.

Cooke, however, denied that harassment continued on campus and said the school commandant and students in Faulkner’s training cadre visited her in the infirmary last week to encourage her and assure her that they would help her catch up with her class when she returned to training.

“They took it as a real mission, I think, to see to it that she was accepted as one of the corps,” he said.

Black said that being a trailblazer subjected Faulkner to emotional pressures she otherwise wouldn’t have to face but that she and her attorneys believed she could handle it.

He said he believed that Faulkner was as surprised as anyone when she learned last week that she couldn’t.