Life Without Equal Educational Opportunities
Life Without Fair Courts Editorial Cartoon Series by Mikhaela Reid
United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996)
Plaintiff: United States
Defendant: the Commonwealth of Virginia
Issue: Can a state-supported school admit only men to a prestigious military institute while offering women a less prestigious option?
Case Summary
The United States sued the state of Virginia to reform its policy of only admitting men to the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), a prestigious and rigorous state-sponsored military academy of higher learning. When a federal appeals court found that the men-only admissions policy violated the Constitution's Equal Protection clause, the state proposed to remedy the violation by creating the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership (VWIL), a parallel program that would be housed at a separate private liberal arts college. The case was eventually heard by the U.S. Supreme Court which agreed that Virginia was violating the U.S. Constitution by excluding otherwise-qualified women solely because of their sex. The Court also found that the proposed solution to establish VWIL would not fix the constitutional violation that women were being treated unequally — VWIL did not equal VMI in almost every area, including prestige, facilities, course offerings, educational and training experiences nor alumni networking opportunities as VMI.
Justice Ginsburg, who wrote for the majority, found that although allowing women entry into VMI would undoubtedly cause VMI to have to make some accommodations, such as gender-segregated housing, its mission to produce the highest caliber "citizen-soldiers" would remain undisturbed. Indeed, "[w]omen seeking and fit for VMI-quality education cannot be offered anything less, under [Virginia's] obligation to afford them genuinely equal protection." VMI's first class to include female cadets enrolled in August 1997.
