518 U.S. 515 (1996)
In 1839 the Commonwealth of Virginia established the Virginia Military Institute as one of the nation's first state military colleges.1 VMI has remained financially supported by the state and subject to the control of the Virginia General Assembly.2 The school enrolls approximately 1,300 male cadets and offers academic programs in the liberal arts, sciences, and engineering that are also available at other Virginia public institutions.3 Its distinctive mission is to produce citizen-soldiers through an adversative method featuring physical rigor, mental stress, absolute equality of treatment, absence of privacy, minute regulation of behavior, and indoctrination in desirable values.4 Cadets live in spartan barracks, participate in drills, endure the rat line, and operate under a strict honor code.5 VMI graduates have included military generals, members of Congress, and business executives, and the school maintains the largest per-student endowment of any public undergraduate institution in the nation.6
In 1990 a female high-school student filed a complaint with the Attorney General seeking admission to VMI.7 The United States then sued the Commonwealth of Virginia and VMI, alleging that the exclusively male admissions policy violated the Equal Protection Clause.8 Trial consumed six days and involved expert witnesses on each side.9 In the two years preceding the lawsuit VMI had received inquiries from 347 women but responded to none.10 The District Court ruled in VMI's favor in 1991, finding that single-gender education yields substantial benefits and that VMI's methods are inherently suited to men.11 The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed in 1992 and remanded the case for selection of a remedy.12
On remand Virginia proposed the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership, a four-year state-sponsored undergraduate program located at the private Mary Baldwin College and open initially to twenty-five to thirty students.13 VWIL would share VMI's mission of producing citizen-soldiers but would employ a cooperative method rather than an adversative one, would not require barracks living or uniforms during the school day, and would offer a narrower range of academic programs.14 The average combined SAT score of Mary Baldwin entrants was about 100 points lower than VMI's, its faculty held significantly fewer Ph.D.s and received lower salaries, and its endowment was substantially smaller.15 The District Court approved the VWIL plan in 1994, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed in 1995.16
The United States petitioned for certiorari, which the Supreme Court granted in 1995.17 Some women could meet VMI's physical standards. VMI's methodology could be used to educate women.18 VWIL students would not experience the rigorous military training, faculty, facilities, alumni network, or prestige associated with VMI.19
Whether Virginia's exclusion of women from the Virginia Military Institute violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?20
Gender-based government action must be supported by an exceedingly persuasive justification.21 The State must show that the classification serves important governmental objectives and that the discriminatory means employed are substantially related to the achievement of those objectives.22 The justification must be genuine and not reliant on overbroad generalizations about the talents, capacities, or preferences of males and females.23
Yes. Virginia has not demonstrated an exceedingly persuasive justification for maintaining VMI's male-only admissions policy.24 The Commonwealth points to the benefits of single-sex education and diversity in its public institutions.25 Yet the historical record reveals that VMI was founded in 1839 at a time when higher education for women was scarcely contemplated.26 Other Virginia public colleges later converted to coeducation without advancing any policy of diversity through single-sex options.27
The District Court credited expert testimony that VMI's adversative methods are inherently suited to men.28 But the record establishes that some women can meet VMI's physical standards. VMI received inquiries from 347 women in the two years before suit.29 Experts agreed VMI's methodology could be used to educate women and would improve ROTC training for a mixed-gender force.30 These facts show that the exclusion rests on overbroad stereotypes rather than a genuine and substantially related objective.31
Virginia's exclusion of women from VMI violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.32
Related opinions on this issue
Chief Justice Rehnquist concurs in the judgment that Virginia violated the Equal Protection Clause by excluding women from VMI.33 He writes separately because he would adhere to the traditional intermediate scrutiny standard announced in Craig v. Boren rather than the majority's "exceedingly persuasive justification" formulation.34 Rehnquist explains that the phrase introduces unnecessary uncertainty and that the Craig test asking whether a gender classification serves important objectives and is substantially related to them is sufficient.35
He finds the Commonwealth's diversity justification unpersuasive because no corresponding single-sex opportunity existed for women.36 Rehnquist concludes that after Hogan, Virginia had notice of the constitutional problem yet failed to provide substantially equal opportunity through VWIL.37
Justice Scalia dissents from the holding that VMI's male-only policy violates equal protection.38 He contends that the majority's "exceedingly persuasive justification" standard operates in practice as strict scrutiny with no foundation in precedent.39 Scalia maintains that intermediate scrutiny from Craig v. Boren is the proper test for sex-based classifications.40
He argues that Virginia satisfied this standard because the District Court made extensive findings after a six-day trial.41 Those findings show that VMI's adversative method is uniquely suited to men and would be materially altered by the admission of women.42 Scalia concludes that the findings are entitled to deference. They demonstrate that the exclusion is substantially related to an important governmental objective.43
Whether the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership program provides a constitutionally adequate remedy for any equal protection violation?44
A remedy for an unconstitutional exclusion must closely fit the violation by placing the victims in the position they would have occupied absent discrimination.45 The remedy must provide substantially equal opportunity rather than a program that is merely a pale shadow of the original in tangible and intangible benefits.46
No. The VWIL program does not provide a constitutionally adequate remedy.47 Virginia located VWIL at the private Mary Baldwin College with an entering class of only twenty-five to thirty students.48 The average SAT score of entrants was one hundred points lower than VMI's.49 Mary Baldwin's faculty held significantly fewer Ph.D.s and received lower salaries.50
VWIL offered no engineering or advanced math and physics courses.51 Its endowment was far smaller than VMI's.52 VWIL employs a cooperative rather than adversative method.53 It does not require barracks living or uniforms during the school day.54
VWIL offers no equivalent rigorous military training, alumni network, or prestige.55 These concrete disparities demonstrate that VWIL fails to afford women the same range of curricular choices, faculty stature, funding, facilities, and intangible benefits that VMI provides to men.56
The Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership program does not provide a constitutionally adequate remedy for the equal protection violation.57
Related opinions on this issue
Chief Justice Rehnquist agrees that the VWIL program is an inadequate remedy.58 He explains that VWIL does not provide women with a substantially equal educational opportunity because it lacks the resources, faculty credentials, facilities, and prestige of VMI.59 Rehnquist would require Virginia to demonstrate a genuine interest in single-sex education for women that is comparable to its interest in single-sex education for men at VMI.60
He notes that simply appending a program to a private college with inferior funding and different methodology fails to cure the constitutional violation.61 Rehnquist concludes that an adequate remedy would need to match the quality and character of the opportunity denied to women.62
Justice Scalia dissents from the holding that VWIL fails as a remedy.63 He argues that the Constitution does not require the remedial program to be a duplicate of VMI in every respect.64 Scalia maintains that Virginia's parallel program offering comparable educational opportunities satisfies equal protection because the programs need not be identical in every detail.65
He contends that the majority's insistence on exact replication has no precedent and that the Court of Appeals correctly found the opportunities at VWIL and VMI to be substantively comparable.66 Scalia concludes that the decision will have far-reaching consequences for single-sex education by effectively requiring identical institutions.67