ique curriculum and approach, the adversative method of instruction, for preparing its students for careers in military and civilian life, which was open only to male students.
On January 31, 1990, the Justice Department, after investigating a complaint by a female high school student that she had been denied admission to VMI, informed VMI that it would sue it unless it admitted women. VMI refused. After the government sued VMI for violating the Equal Protection Cause, U.S. District Court Judge Jackson Kiser on June 17, 1991 ruled in VMI's favor on the grounds that the admission of women would frustrate its unique method of turning out citizen-soldiers.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit reversed and held that, under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, VMI must admit women, become a private university not supported by public funds, or offer training comparable for women applicants to VMI. VMI then set up in conjunction with a nearby private women's college, Mary Baldwin College, a new parallel program for women applicants to VMI, the Virginia Women's Institute for leadership (VWIL). This new program met with the approval of the District Court and the 4th Circuit, setting the stage for the case to be argued before the Supreme Court on January 17, 1996. By a seven-to-one majority, the Court held that VMI's single sex admissions policy and its remedial alternative, VWIL, violated the Equal Protection Clause.
Majority Opinion. In her opinion for the majority, Justice Ruth Ginsburg announced the Court's holdings and its rationale. Justice Ginsburg's principal points were as follows:
(1) She first reviewed and accepted that VMI's educational methods were unique, its adversative system featuring "physical rigor, mental stress, absolute equality of treatment, absence of privacy, minute regulation of behavior, and indoctrination in desirable values."
(2) She address...