VMI Sounds Retreat, Votes to Admit Women in 1997

The Virginia Military Institute decided Saturday to open its barracks and parade grounds to women, retreating from 157 years of male-only tradition as the price of keeping its public funds.

The decision by the VMI board came nearly three months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that VMI’s exclusion of women was unconstitutional.

While The Citadel in South Carolina decided in just two days to go along with the decision, VMI had put off acting while it weighed the possibility of going private to preserve its traditions and discipline.

The board voted, 9 to 8, to admit women by the fall of 1997. The Citadel already has admitted four female cadets for the current year.

“The board made this decision with the full understanding that VMI will not change the military and academic features of its culture, which has distinguished the institute since its founding,” William Berry, president of the governing Board of Visitors, told a news conference.

Gov. George F. Allen and state legislators had urged VMI to go along with the high court’s ruling. Many alumni strongly opposed allowing women into the school in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Reaction among VMI cadets was mixed.

Senior cadet Brian Bagwan, 22, said there would be “no fundamental change. . . . VMI is a lot more than having or not having women.”

But Jabari Craddock, a 19-year-old junior, said many cadets were saddened to see the tradition end. “One day when I start a family, and my son comes to me and says, ‘Hey Pops, I want to attend an all-male military institute like you did,’ I’ll say, ‘Son, I’m sorry, there are no more of them left.’ ”

If VMI had decided to go private rather than admit women on equal footing with men, the school would have had to raise a minimum endowment of $200 million to generate the $10 million in annual operating funds now supplied by the state, according to VMI Supt. Josiah Bunting III.

The alumni also might have had to buy the campus, valued at $137 million.