VMI Leader Says Sex Segregation Better for School
The superintendent of Virginia Military Institute maintains his opinion that women are a disruptive influence to the school, despite a smooth transition to coeducation.
“Young people who are thrown together fall in love and have physical relationships, and those things have an effect on the efficiency of a fighting unit,” Josiah Bunting III said.
Still, Bunting said he’s committed to following the mandate of the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1996 ordered VMI to admit women or give up its state funding.
“Though our story has something of a happy ending and, perhaps, an engaging and prosperous future, the long first chapter of the story is indeed sad,” Bunting said in a speech Friday at the National Press Club in Washington.
“If there were a single college or school in our country that would seem to have depended for its efficiency . . . upon being a school for one gender only, [VMI] was it.”
The class of 460 freshmen that entered VMI last fall included 30 women, 23 of whom survived the so-called Rat Line, a months-long ritual in which freshmen are intimidated and harassed by upperclassmen. No women complained of sexual harassment.
Officials at the 158-year-old military school in Lexington, Va., say they expect about 35 more women to enter the school next year.
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