Virginia Governor Urges VMI to Admit Women

Gov. George F. Allen warned Thursday that the Virginia Military Institute “will be made by the media into a pariah” if it doesn’t follow a U.S. Supreme Court ruling rejecting its 157-year-old all-male policy.

Allen made the comment as alumni presented their case Thursday for taking the school private rather than comply with the June court ruling, which said women cannot be excluded from a state-supported college.

The Citadel in South Carolina, which had been the nation’s only other all-male public military college, admitted women for the fall term after the court ruled against VMI.

William Berry, president of VMI’s governing Board of Visitors, said the board will vote on the matter Saturday after its closed, four-day meeting to discuss the change.

A recommendation to become a private college would have to be approved by the Virginia General Assembly, the governor and U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser, who is in charge of making sure the Supreme Court ruling is followed.

Allen wouldn’t say whether he would block an attempt by VMI to go private, but he said he would like to comply with the Supreme Court order and allow women into VMI.

The institute would have to raise a minimum endowment of $100 million to generate the $10 million in annual operating funds needed to replace state funding, said Josiah Bunting, VMI superintendent.

Bunting said the school’s alumni also might have to come up with funds to buy the campus, valued at $137 million, from the state.