Unconstitutionally Male?: The Story of United States v. Virginia

Katharine T. Bartlett, Duke Law School

Available in the Faculty Scholarship collection.

Abstract

This article tracks the different views of gender equality reflected in United States v. Virginia, from trial through the various appeals, including the 1996 opinion of the United States Supreme Court, and through the actual integration of women into VMI. It highlights the fact that while many views of equality were represented in the case throughout its history, no party and no court addressed what is arguably the most objectionable feature of VMI, which was not that it excluded women, but that its "unique" pedagogical method was based on an explicitly demeaning and subordinating view of women.