VMI faces probe into sexism

LEXINGTON, Va. | Virginia Military Institute is defending itself against a lengthy investigation into accusations that the school’s policies are sexist and hostile toward female cadets, a dozen years after women won the right to enroll.

The federal Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has an ongoing investigation of a sex-discrimination complaint at the small, state-supported school that so far has taken nearly a year and a half - three times longer than usual for such probes.

Defenders say VMI has worked hard to recruit women and make them comfortable since the U.S. Supreme Court ordered coeducation in 1997, but they remain a small minority. Of the 1,500 cadets on the Shenandoah Valley campus this fall, 126 are women.

“The language and terminology that is used and considered acceptable by VMI in the barracks reflects a climate and culture that is derogatory and discriminatory toward the women that are required as cadets to live in the barracks,” according to the Education Department’s June 2008 complaint.

Details of the federal complaint were first reported by the Roanoke Times.

Federal authorities are also investigating whether sexism is prevalent in VMI’s tenure and promotion policies; the handling of student and employee complaints; and the school’s marriage and parenthood policy, which requires cadets to resign once they marry or conceive a child.

The list of specific policies that authorities were asked to investigate was among large portions of the complaint that were redacted in the copy given to the Associated Press, as was any information about the complainant.

Department of Education spokesman Jim Bradshaw said 90 percent of investigations are completed within six months, but had no estimate of when the VMI probe might conclude. It is ongoing after 16 months.

No similar complaint has been filed against The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., the nation’s only other four-year state college with an all-military undergraduate program.

The complaint against VMI doesn’t include accusations of sexual assault or other criminal acts, although a cadet was dismissed last spring after being charged with rape and sodomy of a female classmate. Stephen J. Lloyd of Mason Neck, Va., was convicted in October of a lesser charge, sexual battery.

The school has had seven sexual-offense complaints since women started enrolling in 1997, spokesman Stewart MacInnis said, but Lloyd’s was the first that resulted in a criminal charge.

Women are more likely to encounter discrimination - including degrading comments and lack of advancement opportunities - if they make up less than 25 percent of a group, said Nancy Duff Campbell, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center in Washington.

“They don’t necessarily want to rock the boat by complaining,” she said. “It’s not necessarily fear. It’s just ‘I want to go along to get along.’ ”

The Virginia military college founded in 1839 fought coeducation, but since the court ruling, has tried to recruit and welcome women, Mr. MacInnis said.

In June, VMI won a top award for its recruitment efforts from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, a Washington-based association of educational institutions.

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