ADMINISTRATION LAWYER ARGUES CASE AGAINST MALE-ONLY MILITARY INSTITUTE.

Byline: Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

Hammering at the last bastions of all-male public education in the nation, a Clinton administration lawyer Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to allow women to enroll in the rigorous, prestigious Virginia Military Institute.

VMI, a strict 156-year-old state college in Lexington, Va., where Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson taught and World War II Gen. George C. Marshall studied, is based on a stereotype that "only men can face adversity and succeed," Deputy Solicitor General Paul Bender said.

In response, attorney Theodore Olson argued for Virginia that VMI's program is unique, that few women want to go there and that Virginia offers a softened but comparable leadership program for women at Mary Baldwin College 35 miles away. A federal appeals court upheld the separate programs.

Virginia and its educational experts simply decided, Olson said, that "single-sex education is valuable to both sexes - and there's no stereotype involved in that decision."

But to the U.S. Justice Department and women's rights groups, the parallel programs for men and women are as constitutionally repugnant as "separate but equal" public education for African-Americans and whites.

The court arguments indicated that VMI's effort to preserve its tax-supported masculine tradition faces an uphill struggle. But if the justices vote to convert VMI into a coeducational college, the decision is likely to be narrow and avoid any serious impact on single-sex private schools.

There are 1,250 male cadets at VMI, which derives about 40 percent of its budget from the state government. The program at Mary Baldwin, which opened last fall, has 41 female students.