New Era to Open as VMI’s Male-Only Enrollment Ends

LEXINGTON, Va. — Jen Jolin grew up just over the mountains from the Virginia Military Institute, keenly aware it was a place where only the strongest succeed. This week, she tests her own strength.

She and 30 other young women will end VMI’s 158-year male-only enrollment policy when they report to campus today.

“It’s scary, it really is,” Jolin said. “Anybody who says they’re not scared is crazy.”

For that matter, VMI, the last state-supported college to exclude women, is anxious too.

No one here wants to suffer the scandals that beset The Citadel after Shannon Faulkner in 1995 became the first woman to enroll at the South Carolina military college.

The federal government battled in court for six years to force VMI to accept women and will watch closely for any sign females are being treated unfairly. VMI is under court order to file quarterly progress reports.

VMI spent millions of dollars fighting a Justice Department lawsuit filed in 1989 on behalf of an unidentified Virginia woman who was denied admission. Last summer, the Supreme Court ruled that if the school accepts tax money it must accept women.

VMI conceded defeat but refused to soften its rigid discipline. Women will wear the same drill uniforms and buzz haircuts as the men. They will live in spartan barracks, just as their brethren do. No lipstick. No jewelry. No dating upperclassmen.

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After VMI’s Board of Visitors voted, 9-8, last September to accept women rather than go private to stay all-male, Supt. Josiah Bunting set in motion detailed planning for the transition.

The state gave VMI $5.1 million to help recruit women, hire extra staff and make renovations, such as separate bathrooms. VMI set up eight committees to study coeducation and hired a female counselor and a female physical education instructor.