President Pleased with Supreme Court's VMI Decision

President Joanne Creighton hailed the Supreme Court's June 26 ruling that women cannot be kept out of the state-supported Virginia Military Institute. Although the decision will effectively make VMI coed, the judges' opinion also acknowledged "the beneficial effects" of single-sex education. The court made a distinction between public and private institutions, and whether an institution offered a "unique" opportunity unavailable elsewhere.

President Creighton, speaking for the College, said, "We are pleased with the analysis in the court's ruling against the exclusion of women from 'unique' state-supported educational opportunities. As the oldest continuous institution of higher education for women in the United States, Mount Holyoke applauds the court's explicit recognition of the important role of single-sex schools in offering young people a diversity of educational opportunities."

"Justice Ginsburg's majority opinion recognizes that 'the beneficial effects' of single-sex education are particularly strong for women, a position we have long maintained and that is self-evident to anyone who spends time at an excellent women's college. Furthermore, the Court stands firmly against the use of broad stereotypes about women's abilities to deny women opportunities. As the president of an institution whose mission is based on the principle that women can achieve at the highest level in their chosen field--no matter what barriers others attempt to put in their way--I am delighted by this decision."

Creighton added, "We never believed that this case applied to us or to other private women's colleges and are pleased that the court reached the same conclusion."

In a July 14 "op-ed" article for the Springfield Sunday Republican, Creighton wrote that this ruling will not spell the death of private women's colleges--"...critiques overlook, perhaps intentionally, fundamental differences between institutions such as the Citadel and VMI and women's colleges."

"The Citadel and VMI have employed exclusionary admissions policies to deny women opportunities on the theory--based on stereotyped and unsupported notions of women's capabilities--that women are not able to handle the demands of the education these institutions provide."

"The very history of women's colleges, on the other hand, is rooted in the opposite notion: that the potential of women to achieve in areas historically closed to them is limitless if given the opportunity for education." She concluded, "The critics of women's colleges, and those who simplistically equate our admissions policies to those of VMI and the Citadel, would do well to learn about it."