First Women Graduate From VMI
The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) was historically an all-male military college run by the State of Virginia. The ACLU challenged the all-male policy, and on June 26, 1996, in United States v. Virginia, the Supreme Court ruled the all-male policy an unconstitutional violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
The first women were admitted in the fall of 1997, and on this day the first women graduated from VMI.
Learn more: Philippa Strum, Women in the Barracks: The VMI Case and Equal Rights (2002)
Watch the 2013 VMI women’s soccer team: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Ej00me6VU
Learn more: Evelyn Monahan and Rosemary Neidel Greenlee, A Few Good Women: America’s Military Women from World War I to the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (2010)
Visit the VMI web site