Faulkner Quits The Citadel
The spectacle of The Citadel cadets celebrating Shannon Faulkner’s leaving the school was disgusting (Aug. 19). If these are the country’s future leaders, we are in serious trouble. Why would anyone want to attend a school full of ignorant people?
ALAN H. SIMON
Van Nuys
*
* While I agree that females have an equal right to join males at The Citadel, I am disappointed that Faulkner was unable to continue for health reasons. When I reported a year ago to the Coast Guard Academy I (and the majority of my female classmates) made sure we were in the best shape of our lives so that both our classmates and the cadets teaching us could not complain that we were members of the “weaker sex” and not living up to the same physical standards for which male cadets are held accountable.
I believe that in her long battle to join the corps at The Citadel, Faulkner lost sight of the need to be physically fit once she entered the gates to spare herself further hazing for her physical weakness, besides that which she would surely receive for being the first female. She faced a great deal of media pressure surrounding her fight, publicity she needed to use positively to ensure that she, as the first female cadet, graduated with flying colors from The Citadel, not just in athletics but academics as well. I hope the next female cadet at The Citadel will have the strength and heart to finish what she started.
LISA KNOPF
Huntington Beach
*
* Having lived one block from The Citadel while going to medical school, I am not surprised that Faulkner dropped out. Besides the oppressive heat and humidity of a Charleston summer, which would make any physical activity an Olympic task for which Faulkner was clearly unfit, the all-male undergraduate antics and hazing would be intolerable for any young woman aspiring to be a lady. Her true intentions may never be known to us.
I was a “frat” boy in undergraduate college and my hazing was a cakewalk in comparison to the treatment “knobs” received at The Citadel. Many would question this sort of mayhem, but it is a school steeped in tradition and honor.
Certainly, in America regardless of sex, color or religion we should all have equal access to public education. On the other hand, we should respect each institution’s right to educate by its own philosophy without trying to change it. I wouldn’t enroll at Catholic University and ask for rabbinical training. Perhaps one day The Citadel will have a women’s regiment, but until the funding is in place, leave it for men.
ROBERT D. BUDMAN MD
Huntington Beach
*
* I think Faulkner has a great future as a politician. For no other reason than to make a political statement she fought to get into The Citadel. Then, when the fire got too hot she opted out. The shallowness of Faulkner’s convictions is laid bare for all the world to see.
RAYMOND E. CERVANTES
Alhambra
*
* Not everyone is up to facing the challenge of being the first.
I, for one, will give her credit for trying, for staying with the court battle to win the right to matriculate at The Citadel. That she cracked under the stress only proves that she is human. It would be too easy to say that she cracked where her male classmates did not, but then, they did not have to live day in and day out with the stress of being the “first” at something.
Watching the news footage of her male classmates rejoicing at her departure, cadets pacing themselves to the cadence of “All male, all male, all male,” I thought how very far this seemingly enlightened country still has to go. I guess, in a sense, Faulkner’s former classmates have won a battle, although it is a Pyrrhic victory at best. Anyone who rejoices at the misfortune of another calls into question his own character and his own right to reap the rewards of virtue.
Although it was not for Faulkner to be the bellwether at The Citadel, other women will follow in her footsteps, and her travail will make their journey a bit less harrowing.
KARLA JOHNSON
Simi Valley
*
* Re “Faulkner Hailed for Blazing a Lonely Trail to Citadel,” Aug. 20: Indeed, “the picture that stuck was that of the male cadets, cavorting in navy T-shirts, their fists raised above their heads in jubilant celebration that what was theirs alone since 1842 would be theirs again.” Seeing how much pent-up energy was released when it was announced she was leaving gave me a better sense of what she was up against than words ever could have.
But Shannon, hon, you experienced something that they in all their camaraderie and mutual support will never experience. You said it, “I could feel that I was alone.” It’s called meeting “the void.” Congratulations, they remain a mob and you just became a human being!
SUSAN SEA
Venice