How to Ruin an Institution
WEST, WOODY
How to Ruin an Institution Virginia Military Institute ain't what it used to be. BY WOODY WEST JOSIAH BUNTING III, former enlisted Marine, former Army officer, educator, and novelist and, now,...
...No longer, evidently, not at VMI anyway...
...What is critical in a full frontal assault such as that against VMI is that the offending institution not be permitted to catch its breath—keep pounding away...
...The founders of VMI, like the founders of our country, were a faithful people, as most Americans, and most cadets, are today," wrote Bunting in the Wall Street Journal...
...The policy could be in violation of the federal Title IX regulation, as well as violating the Constitution's guarantees of equal protection and the right to privacy...
...The lawsuits against the VMI supper prayer and all-male admissions offer a classic instance of how an institution long in the building can be quickly undermined by an assault on its traditions...
...And the U.S...
...As the Supreme Court observed in approving prayer by salaried legislative chaplains, such prayers are 'no more than a tolerable acknowledgement of beliefs widely held among the people of this country.' Surely a military institute, preparing adults to defend this country, can tolerate exposure to such prayers too...
...Hearing a brief prayer before supper is no more the establishment of religion than the singing of 'God Bless Woody West is associate editor of the Washington Times...
...The "likely consequences" of such a policy, VMI is warned, are litigation "and/or" withdrawal of federal funds...
...VMI could not remain the same institution...
...The transformation of the college over time in fact may come to seem appropriate...
...Though Bunting opposed the "gender rights" battalions during the media-amplified campaign, he labored after the high court ruled to smooth the transition to a co-ed corps of cadets (the first class with females was graduated last spring...
...When all-male admissions is overturned, quickly send in another wave, such as the attack on the "religious observance" before supper...
...BY WOODY WEST JOSIAH BUNTING III, former enlisted Marine, former Army officer, educator, and novelist and, now, retiring superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute, sounded weary and even plaintive as, once again, he tried to defend the traditions of that state-supported academy...
...And when that is judicially routed, have yet another wave ready to parachute in...
...All traditions obviously are not deserving of respect, and some traditions are more fragile than they might appear...
...Even deep-rooted traditions are vulnerable to antagonistic external influence—or, for that matter, internal influences...
...Something has been lost, something vital to the soul of the institution, it may well be...
...It is useful if there is a sex peg to hang a complaint on, and better still if there is a military component— the Citadel in South Carolina went down on both counts before VMI...
...But "soul" is a deflated cultural currency, compared with the absolutism of "equality...
...They can wither as the climate in which they were planted is desiccated by time and usage, or evolve into something quite unrecognizable as social trends modify over time...
...But it is not the VMI of Stonewall Jackson, of George C. Marshall, or even the VMI from which Bunting himself was graduated...
...Out, damned spot...
...That seems sufficiently evenhanded...
...The Virginia Military Institute continues to chug along with a fine academic reputation and evidently a fair amount of its historic élan...
...Not so, contends the phalanx of watchdogs...
...He was reacting to a federal judge's recent ruling that VMI's traditional supper prayer—a "brief, nonsectarian, inclusive blessing," as Bunting described it—constitutes a coerced religious exercise...
...As Bunting recalls the Supreme Court oral arguments on the male admissions case, "Justice [Stephen] Breyer shouted out in the hearing, 'If you have to abandon this so-called adversative system or whatever you call it, I say, So what!'" Enduring traditions deserve at least a thoughtful examination before they are tossed out with the trash, not derision...
...It is indicative that the VMI supper "grace" was challenged by two cadets at Lexington, with the ACLU doing the heavy lifting, of course...
...Department of Justice late last year ended its scrutiny of the assimilation of women to the college at Lexington...
...Since he became superintendent in mid-1995, with the state rank of major general, Bunting steadily has had to yield traditional territory of the college founded in 1839...
...America,' a prayer set to music...
...The strategy is simplicity itself: All that is required is a tenacious motivation, a claim to the moral high ground, and an Order of Battle, so to speak, that includes full mobilization of ideological and political allies...
...Supporters of VMI warned early in the fracas that when women were admitted, the experience young men were seeking as part of the corps of cadets would not be, could not be, that which they once absorbed...
...there now are about 60 women among the 1,300 cadets enrolled...
...VMI's board of directors responded by insisting that pregnant students leave the college or face expulsion—and the same applies to the student who, as the ACLU letter puts it, "causes" the pregnancy (an odd verb, but let it pass...
...Since females joined the male corps of cadets there have been several predictable instances of he-ing and she-ing...
...The most significant, of course, was the fierce litigation that led, in 1996, to the Supreme Court's 7-1 decision that the all-male institute had to admit women (Justice Clarence Thomas abstained because his son was a cadet...
...And indeed the Virginia ACLU and the national organization's "Women's Rights Project" is ready...
...That ought to keep 'em busy for a while, the gang in the ACLU war-room doubtless chuckled, and ordered its researchers to find another potential vulnerability if and when the preggers problem is resolved...
Vol. 7 • March 2002 • No. 24
