An A-minus grade-point average, ranked 28th in a high school class of 200, proven leader, athlete, artist, musician and writer. An admission rep’s dream candidate.
The Citadel thought so, too, and in January 1993 accepted high school senior Shannon Richey Faulkner of Powdersville, S.C., into its 2,000-member corps of cadets for the fall. Then it learned what is unthinkable for an all-male school in the deep South with a 151-year-old military tradition to uphold. Faulkner is a woman. Two weeks after she was accepted, she was rejected.
“They said I was ineligible for the day program, a single-gender program under the Title IX Education Act of 1972,” Faulkner says. Ironically, the school used Title IX, the amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act stating that schools discriminating on the basis of gender would risk losing federal funding, to keep Faulkner out.
When the law was enacted, South Carolina’s congressional delegation attached an exemption for The Citadel to continue as a single-gender school without penalty.
An average applicant might have accepted The Citadel’s position and let it go at that. Faulkner, 19, is proving in her own quiet and focused way that she is anything but average. Brushing off insinuations that she applied as a joke or is the pawn of ambitious lawyers, she has stuck to her resolve in a heated court battle.
On Jan. 18, Faulkner won round one of what is shaping up as an extraordinary contest of wills between a curiously unflappable young woman and a powerful state institution. U.S. Chief Justice William Rehnquist ruled could attend day classes while pursuing through the courts her desire to become a full-fledged member of The Citadel’s corps of cadets.
Characterizing herself as “strong-willed, open-minded and independent,” she has been called on to marshal these qualities almost daily after filing a lawsuit last March claiming that because The Citadel receives 20 percent of its funding from the state of South Carolina, the college cannot exclude women. She says this exclusion denies her equal protection under the Constitution.
And now, almost a year later, even though she’s attending day classes as a second-semester freshman alongside the gray-uniformed, all-male corps, and the first woman to do so, her fight is far from over. The Citadel has repeatedly stated it does not intend to allow a woman to wear a uniform and be a member of the corps of cadets.
Citadel cadets, after all, fired the first shots in the Civil War and represent a lingering, though rapidly fading Old South romanticism. Tourists still catch a whiff of past glory on Fridays watching precision drills on a manicured parade ground bordered by oak trees. Perceived as a last bastion for gentlemen being taught to honor their commitments, the school is held in high esteem by most South Carolinians.
The school is also perceived as powerful, able to have its way with the state’s General Assembly and its fiercely loyal alumni. At the school’s behest and to bolster its legal case, the South Carolina General Assembly passed a resolution last May reaffirming its support for single-gender education. This action may cause the courts “to look not only at The Citadel, but at the whole state system to determine equitability,” says Dawes Cooks, one of the school’s attorneys.
Responding to criticism that it is throwing away state money on a case it will inevitably lose, The Citadel has rallied alumni, raising $85,000 in a month for its legal fund.
The only state money being spent on the Faulkner case, Citadel officials say, is 28 percent of a $60,000 annual insurance premium paid to the South Carolina Insurance Reserve Fund out of its general operating funds. Opponents claim the school already has spent $1 million to keep women out. A Citadel spokesman said the figure is closer to $700,000.
Not long ago a schoolgirl from a South Carolina hamlet, Faulkner is now a banner carrier for women’s rights in a largely conservative state where the Confederate flag still flies atop the statehouse in Columbia.
She’s the second child in a close-knit, Protestant, churchgoing, liberal family of modest means. Her mother teaches history at Wren High School in Anderson County, where Faulkner graduated. Having her mother around provided easy access to her high school’s inner workings, she says, but created pressures too. “My teachers expected more.”
Faulkner says she knew little about The Citadel until she read a magazine article about it for an assignment in high school. Dismissing gossip that someone or some organization put her up to applying at The Citadel, she emphasizes that she filled out the application on her own. “My parents didn’t even know I applied. Nobody pushes me to do anything.”
Peppering her answers with “yes, ma’am” and “no, ma’am,” Faulkner shows herself to be a true child of the South who has been taught to be polite, even under pressure. She says she has lived in Powdersville, a bedroom community of Greenville 200 miles west of Charleston, all her life in a secure “Leave It to Beaver” family. “My cousin says we’re a TV family. He says we’re unreal. Real families don’t eat together or do stuff together.”
Matter-of-factly, she rattles off a list of accomplishments that may or may not have bearing on why she’s now the lone woman student in day classes at The Citadel: she was drum major of her high school band for two years, statistician for three basketball teams, ace softball player, yearbook editor for two years and four years’ experience on the school paper.
Then she braces for the tougher questions. The ease with which she answers suggests she’s heard them before.
Asked whether other colleges might have been more appropriate, Faulkner says: “The Citadel is the school where I can get the best education. The education department is strong. The school has prestige. When you say `Citadel’ in South Carolina, it’s a very big name. The school offers military training and alumni networking. If you wear The Citadel ring, you’re bound. They hold the ring sacred.”
Asked whether she can endure the physical demands on a cadet, the hazing and probable harassment, she says: “I want the whole experience. I know I can’t do as many pushups. But I can probably do more situps. This has to do with differences between males and females. I know my mental endurance is greater (than males’), especially with all I’ve been through.”
Despite incidents of harassment, including angry phone calls and spray paint and eggs on her house, Faulkner says, she has no intention of backing down, even “after seeing family friends with connections to The Citadel turn away from me.”
Meanwhile, Faulkner is living off campus and studying biology, English, math, history and education, her major. She says she wants to be a teacher and has some interest in pursuing a career in the military. If she wins entry into the corps of cadets, she would be required to take four years of ROTC training.
The freshman “knobs” she joins for classes have been up since before daybreak as part of a program the college calls its “whole man” philosophy.
“Freshmen are exposed to strict discipline, stress and are constantly tested. We make no excuse for how tough it is. The program is not designed for females,” says Maj. Rick Mill, the college’s public-relations officer.
Becoming testy when asked if the band still performs “Dixie” (it does), Mill argues that the issue at hand is not about tradition at all.
“We’re fighting for the right to know if there is public support for a single-gender opportunity. The state of South Carolina for 151 years has said there is. They’ve maintained public support for The Citadel since 1842.”
The South Carolina General Assembly already has approved an alternative plan that is not even before the court in Faulkner’s case. Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Va., is the only other remaining all-male, state-supported military college in the U.S. A plan put forward as an alternative to admitting women to VMI is for parallel instruction of women at Mary Baldwin College in nearby Staunton, Va. In a bizarre turn of affairs, the South Carolina General Assembly said it would consider sending South Carolina women to Mary Baldwin for military-type instruction.
Faulkner’s case is also still before the court. Her attorneys, both those who are working for free in the expectation of recovering fees from The Citadel and those supplies by the American Civil Liberties Union, are expected to appear in U.S. District Court Thursday to ask for a summary judgment, meaning there are no issues of fact, only of law. If she wins a summary judgment, Citadel lawyers say they will appeal, starting another round of court action.
U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno recently called Faulkner to assure her that the Justice Department is interested and involved in her case. Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.) has warned his alma mater to go private or back down.
“The school is determined to fight. A number of faculty members feel this is not appropriate,” says Peter Mailloux, an associate professor of English at The Citadel and a former president of the faculty council.
Nonetheless, the battle cry to keep the status quo seems to get louder and more emotionally charged each day. The school’s administration and a vocal group of alumni are determined to use every legal means to protect their position.
The attitude of the cadets has been more difficult for Faulkner to accept.
Some have been low-key, welcoming Faulkner as if her arrival were a non-event. Others are predicting doomsday if women are allowed in. Eight of these have asked to join the college’s lawsuit claiming their right to a single-gender education is being denied.
A common argument on campus and in the public debate is that letting women enter will lower The Citadel’s standards. The catch phrase on campus, “Save the Males,” is ubiquitous on bumper stickers and coffee mugs.
“At this point Shannon is a matter of toleration,” Mill answers when asked how the cadets are adapting to Faulkner’s presence. She causes “an absolute difference in the classroom.”
In the midst of this whirlwind walks Faulkner, a person with “the stuff civil rights cases are made of-character, courage, integrity, commitment, determination,” says Robert R. Black, a Charleston attorney and member of Faulkner’s legal team. “Seeing this little 19-year-old stand up against The Citadel is remarkable. She’s far beyond her years. She’s a schoolgirl up against the most powerful pound-for-pound institution in the state.”
