Lawyers for three women who will join the previously all-male Citadel Military College Aug. 24 argue to federal judge Weston Houck today in Charleston, S.C., that the school's plan for accommodating the female cadets is discriminatory. Among the objections:
The lawyers also want more specifics on the Citadel's plan for sexual-harassment training, scholarship money for women, and adding women staffers.
- Kicking out pregnant cadets is a civil-rights violation because pregnancy has to be treated as temporary disability.
- Latches can't be put on the women's dorm rooms; they must be on men's as well.
- Qualifications for the Citadel's governing board must be changed because, as written, no woman would be eligible for some time.
The Citadel agreed to admit women in June after the U.S. Supreme Court, ruling in the case of Virginia Military Institute, ended single-sex education at state schools.
[Ed.: Citadel requires at least 42 push-ups of its male students in a two-minute interval; for women it is 18. Women are also allowed an extra 19 percent on their time to run two miles. The ACLU's $6.7 million bill for legal work that won Shannon Faulkner a single day at The Citadel took 653 hours to prepare at an extra cost of $105,000. While the ACLU took the Faulkner case "pro bono"—free to the client—a civil-rights law permits large fees for "prevailing parties."]
