Female Military Student Joins 3 Others Seeking Citadel Entry

A student who wants to follow Shannon Faulkner into the Citadel’s corps of cadets made her formal application to the state military college Monday.

The school won’t consider Nancy Mellette’s application until the courts decide whether the corps can remain all-male, spokesman Terry Leedom said.

“She will be sent a letter saying the issue is being adjudicated,” he said. “The application will be put on hold pending resolution of the case, and the trial begins Nov. 6.”

After the trial, U.S. District Judge C. Weston Houck will consider whether a woman’s leadership program at Converse College, a private women’s school in Spartanburg, is an acceptable alternative to admitting women to the Citadel corps.

Mellette, 17, is a senior at Oak Ridge Military Academy, a co-ed preparatory school in North Carolina. Her father is a Citadel graduate and her brother is a Citadel cadet. She wants to intervene in the lawsuit Faulkner filed challenging the constitutionality of a public school barring women from the corps.

Faulkner became a cadet last month after a 2 1/2-year court fight but dropped out after less than a week, citing the stress of the battle and her isolation. She was accepted in 1993 after deleting references to her sex from her high school transcripts, but the school changed its mind when it discovered she is a woman.

Also Monday, the school received an application from another woman who wants to attend, making it a total of four in recent months. Leedom said all are on hold. None of the others have filed to intervene in the lawsuit.

Houck has set an Oct. 3 hearing to consider Mellette’s request to intervene and Faulkner’s request to stay on as a plaintiff. The Citadel wants her removed now that she has left school.