There is a story about VMI in today’s Washington Post. Some quotes from the article, the article itself is not all bad:
The cultural shifts have proved more difficult. Last year, the U.S. Justice Department began investigating whether VMI’s environment is especially hostile to women. Allegations of sexual assault have become a fact of VMI life, occurring about once a year, typical for a school of this size, according to college officials. The first case to result in a criminal charge ended Tuesday.
The institute’s methods are unique and, after 170 years, increasingly out of sync with the world beyond the post.
The U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation of possible sex discrimination at VMI in summer 2008 in response to an unnamed complainant, according to spokesman Jim Bradshaw. The complaint alleged “a climate and culture that is derogatory and discriminatory toward the women that are required as cadets to live in the barracks.”
The bellowing, the sweat parties, the endless push-ups of August were, “more than anything, a head game,” she said. “It’s all mental.”
