Supreme Court Decides not to Block First Woman Cadet at Citadel

Press release

By: Deval L. Patrick

Date: August 11, 1995

Source: Patrick, Deval L. Statement by Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Deval L. Patrick on Today's Supreme Court Decision Not to Block Shannon Faulkner from Becoming a Cadet at the Citadel. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, August 11, 1995. Available at: 〈http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/Pre_96/August95/442.txt.html〉 (accessed April 5, 2006).

About the Author: Deval L. Patrick (1956–), a civil rights attorney, grew up on Chicago's South Side before graduating from Harvard University in 1978. He then earned a law degree from Harvard. After serving as a law clerk for a year to a federal appellate judge, Patrick joined the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in 1983 where he devoted most of his time to death penalty and voting rights cases. In 1994, President William J. Clinton appointed Patrick to be Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, the nation's top civil rights post. Patrick returned to private practice in 1997.

INTRODUCTION

In the 1970s and 1980s, many all-male organizations, including educational institutions, agreed to accept women. Yet a few schools, including The Citadel in South Carolina and Virginia Military Academy, steadfastly refused to join the coeducational movement.

A degree from The Citadel guaranteed success in the Carolinas. Graduates filled the highest ranks of politics and business. Officials of The Citadel, also known as the Military College of South Carolina, tolerated the often-brutal hazing of underclassmen in the belief that such abusive treatment built an elite breed of men. There was no place for women in such a system and The Citadel had long contended that there was no demand from women to enter the school.

When Shannon Faulkner applied to The Citadel in 1993, she deleted references to her gender. The school accepted her, thinking she was male, then withdrew the acceptance after realizing that she was a woman. Faulkner began attending classes at the school as a day student in January 1994. She was not permitted to take part in military training or to wear the distinctive gray uniform issued to cadets.

The Citadel is publicly funded by the state of South Carolina; it received $12 million from the state in 1995. As a state-supported school, it was legally required to admit women. Accordingly, Faulkner's effort gained the backing of the U.S. Justice Department, but it also stirred deep and bitter feelings in South Carolina. Faulkner received death threats, harassing phone calls, and was hissed at in restaurants. The school's alumni network lobbied hard to keep Faulkner out of The Citadel, even distributing bumper stickers reading "Save the Males." On April 13, 1995, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals said that The Citadel could not exclude Faulkner and other women from a program that had been exclusively male for 152 years. The Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.

When the U.S. Military Academy at West Point went co-educational in 1976, 119 women entered as cadets at the same time. Faulkner entered The Citadel alone. She dropped out on August 18, 1995 after five days of training, unable to withstand the physical and psychological pressures. As word of Faulkner's departure spread across the school, cadets whooped and danced. A cadre of upperclassmen quickly created a chant: "Marching down the avenue/Now we know that Faulkner's through/I am happy and so are you!" Faulkner graduated from Anderson College in 1999 and became a public school teacher.

PRIMARY SOURCE

WASHINGTON, D.C. —Today Chief Justice William Rehnquist cleared the way for Shannon Faulkner to become the first woman cadet at The Citadel by denying an emergency request to bar her entry. The Chief Justice's order follows more than two years of litigation by Faulkner and the Justice Department challenging the South Carolina school's all-male admissions policy. The Citadel is one of only two remaining all-male state schools in the nation.

After declaring the school's all-male admissions policy unconstitutional, the Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit last April ordered state and school officials to admit Faulkner if they had not established a legally-sufficient alternative program for women by tomorrow. The state waited until June to propose an alternative program, which has not yet been ruled on by the trial court.

Virginia Military Institute (VMI), the other all-male state school, has established an alternative program for women. In that case, the Justice Department has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming the VMI alternative is not an adequate remedy for excluding women from VMI.

Deval L. Patrick, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, issued the following statement today about the Citadel case:

"Today's action by the U.S. Supreme Court paves the way for Shannon Faulkner to become the first female cadet at The Citadel. Ms. Faulkner has shown tremendous courage in her fight for equal educational opportunity. She has opened the doors to one of the last all-male state schools in the nation.

Over three years ago Ms. Faulkner applied to The Citadel and got in, only to be later turned away because of her gender. Up to the very end, school officials fought the decisions of the courts that she was entitled to admission. The Justice Department will continue to support Ms. Faulkner and other women who seek to vindicate their right to equal educational opportunity."

SIGNIFICANCE

Women rarely received a formal education until the nineteenth century. As long as a woman knew how to cook and clean, the feeling was she did not need to know anything else. The aftermath of the American Revolution gave rise to the notion that citizens needed to be educated for the newly created democracy to succeed. One result of this belief was the education of girls. Educators introduced females to the subjects of science, history, government, and civic affairs.

Yet many people continued to regard women as constitutionally unfit to withstand the mental and physical demands of higher education. This attitude could be found well into the twentieth century. With the advance of the women's movement, attitudes shifted and such schools as Harvard University agreed to admit women in the 1970s. The Citadel's efforts to resist Faulkner were part of a wider resistance to social and cultural changes.

While Faulkner battled with The Citadel, another sex discrimination case wound its way through the courts. In 1990, the Bush administration filed a lawsuit on behalf of a woman denied admission to VMI on account of her sex. In July 1996, in a seven-to-one vote, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all-male admissions policies violate women's constitutional right to equal protection because the policies do nothing for women. The Court ordered VMI to admit women or give up state funding.

The decision ended any hopes that The Citadel would be able to remain all-male. In the wake of the Court's ruling, The Citadel's governing board voted unanimously to immediately accept qualified female applicants. By 2002, 97 women had enrolled, making up about five percent of the student body. Private women's colleges were not affected by the ruling since they address economic disabilities particular to women and attempt to promote equal employment opportunity.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Manegold, Catherine S. In Glory's Shadow: Shannon Faulkner, the Citadel, and A Changing America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.

Sadker, Myra, and David Sadker. Failing at Fairness: How America's Schools Cheat Girls. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994.

Weis, Lois, and Michelle Fine, editors. Beyond Silenced Voices: Class, Race, and Gender in U.S. Schools. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.