UNITED STATES V. VIRGINIA
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This legal memorandum discusses and analyzes the constitutional law applicable to gender specific institutions of higher learning, as established by the Supreme Court in its seven to one decision in United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996). Its overall conclusion is that after this case it is for all practical purposes constitutionally impermissible for institutions of higher learning to maintain single-sex admissions policies or to prevent either gender from being eligible to participate in undergraduate activities. Some nuances and ambiguities of meaning and interpretation were left open by the Court's ruling, most of which had more to do with the attempt by Justice Ruth Ginsburg in the majority opinion to reconcile the majority opinion with prior Supreme Court precedents than they did with the substantive content of the law. These interstitial uncertainties leave open relatively little room for the doubt that this case represents a fairly definitive change in the law in this area. Summary of Holding and Its Impact on VMI. The Supreme Court's holding was that the 157 year old all-male admission policy of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), a public university chartered under Virginia law and the recipient of federal financial assistance, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment (sec. 2). In addition, the Court found that the remedial program adopted by VMI to cure the previous pattern of gender discrimination fou
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erent differences' [between the sexes] are no longer accepted as a ground for race or national origin classifications" (533). She acknowledged that most women, and indeed many men, could not meet, nor would many of them wish to expose themselves to, VMI's rigorous pedagogical approach. Delchin said
the Court in applying intermediate scrutiny in the past, has upheld sex-based classifications even though they were not perfect and did not relate to characteristics holding true in every case. Thus, the fact that a single women, or even several women, were qualified to participate at VMI would not by itself invalidate VMI's single-sex educational program.
At 1413, District Court Judge Kisor appeared to interpret the intermediate scrutiny standard as to require something less than perfect equality of treatment when he said "educational systems are not designed for the exception but the rule." Justice Ginsburg said the 4th Circuit Court of Appeal had been satisfied with the parallel VMI-VWIL system to which she said it applied a 'substantive comparability' test --i.e. "although the appeals court recognized that the VWIL degree 'lacks the historical benefit and prestige' of a VMI degree, it nevertheless found the educational opportu
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Approximate Word count = 3720
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)
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