Mary Baldwin College - VWIL

VWIL

VWIL was originally intended to allow VMI, which was then men-only, to satisfy federal non-discrimination laws without accepting women. In the early 1990s, the United States Government sued the state of Virginia to force compliance with the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution by allowing women to attend the publicly-funded Virginia Military Institute. (see United States v. Virginia). The state won in the district court trial and the United States appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The appellate court, in a decision which pleased neither side, stated that as long as the Commonwealth of Virginia provided an equivalent option for women, constitutional requirements would be satisfied. The appellate court therefore returned the case to district court to sort out how this could be done. The Commonwealth set up a program, the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership, at MBC, which was putatively intended to teach leadership to women in a way that was congenial to their supposed natural differences from men. The district court accepted this solution, but the United States appealed, partly on the grounds that VWIL was and could never be an equivalent to VMI. Ultimately, the Supreme Court of the United States agreed in a 7-1 decision, and women were admitted to VMI for the first time in the late 1990s. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the majority, stated that "The VWIL program is a pale shadow of VMI in terms of the range of curricular choices and faculty stature, funding, prestige, alumni support and influence."