Female ‘Rats’ Impress in 1st Week at VMI

Virginia Military Institute cadet Chris Craft expressed both mild surprise and glowing pride as he described how the first female recruits withstood their hellish first week.

“They’re doing amazingly well,” Craft said as he was entering a bar a few blocks from the barracks. For example, Mia Utz of Pioche, Nev., passed the VMI Fitness Test on her first try. “That’s more than I can say for a lot of the guys over there,” the senior from suburban Richmond pointed out.

It’s too early for VMI to toast success, one week into a hostile initiation that lasts more than six months.

The 158-year-old school that fought so long and hard to keep women out certainly appears to be meeting the challenge of bringing 30 of them in with fairness and equality.

Even so, nearly a semester passed before problems emerged at the nation’s other public military college, The Citadel, where two of the four women cadets dropped out in January, saying they were singled out for hazing.

“Most people had no idea what was developing with those two women,” said Marsha Greenberger, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center in Washington.

VMI’s architecturally Gothic campus is a secluded society that forbids new recruits, or “rats,” from talking to reporters.

“We don’t know what is going on behind the walls,” said Val Vojdik, a law professor who represented Shannon Faulkner when she sued to enter The Citadel.

In the Justice Department’s lawsuit against VMI, the Supreme Court ruled in June 1996 that the state-supported colleges must accept women. VMI began planning to integrate women at the same time that alumni tried to raise enough money to go private.

Some animosity about the VMI board’s 9-8 vote to admit women still smolders. Bumper stickers and T-shirts that deride coeducation remain popular in Lexington.

Women’s groups presumed that Supt. Josiah Bunting was trying to discourage women from entering VMI when he declared that male and female cadets would face the same physical fitness standards and get buzz cuts.

Bunting said shortly thereafter that VMI wanted to enroll at least 30 women in the first coed class since the school was founded in 1839. The school launched an aggressive recruiting effort, and the goal was met precisely.

The decision to cut women no slack also seems to have paid off. Going into the weekend, 20 of the 430 men who enrolled Monday had dropped out, nearly 5%, while one of the 30 women had quit, or about 3%.

Several of the female cadets said before their arrival that it was important for them to face identical challenges, and upperclass cadets agreed that the women have gained more respect because of it.

“They did a good job recruiting,” Vojdik said. “I’ve been really impressed with the quality of the female rats.”