South Carolinians are happy tonight.Frommy room here on East. Wheelock, if I'm really quiet, I can almost hear the rebel yells from my hometown.
They won, you see.
After more than two years, their Shannon Faulkner problem is over.The Citadel cadets did in five days what millions of dollars of legal fees and two years of court appeals could not. They got her out of their male kingdom.
Shannon applied to schools the same time we did. I thought I was crazy for applying to a school so far up North and in the Ivy League; she actually was crazy. She applied, without specifying her sex, to a state-supported, all-male military academy -- the bastion of conservatism in the center of the Bible Belt. They accepted her because the admissions board did not realize she was a female; they rescinded her admission when they found the truth.
She then quietly marched into a young woman lawyer's office in Greenville and she filed a suit which has become one of the famous cases of the decade. Her argument was that she wanted a state-supported military education, and the Citadel is the only game in town.
I do not think she is a feminist, really. I think she just wanted to go where her dad went.
Surely we can relate to that.
After she filed suit, the sparks flew. My senior year of high school it seemed as if half the cars at the supermarket had bumper stickers which read "Save the Males" in Citadel baby blue. Everywhere I went people wore tee shirts which said "The Citadel, Five Hundred Bulldogs and One Bitch." I was at a party one night where a guy spoke of seeing her in a restaurant and spitting on her food. Suffice it to say, my town did not appreciate her college choice.
Her case raged in court forever. She sat at home while we packed our bags and arrived at Dartmouth, and she sat at home while we came back for our sophomore year. She took day classes there, but she could not attend as a full student.
This year, a few days ago, her dream, (or was it a nightmare?) came true. She became a cadet, and then after surviving five physically and mentally grueling days of 100-degree heat, total isolation, and enough hateful epitaphs to full a book, she quit.
So, is Shannon Faulkner a coward?Did she let females around the country down? I do not think so. She was told to pave the way for her gender alone, which is a task at which few individuals, if any, could succeed.
The year was 1958. Consider for a moment if they only allowed one African American into the University of Alabama after Governor Wallace denied his or her admission and the National Guard made that admission certain. If that had been the case, would that student have remained and been able to pave the way for further integration and understanding?
Or, even closer to home, consider the year 1972.Consider if they only allowed one woman into Dartmouth. Would she have survived, and would women be here at all today?
There is a reason, after all, why soldiers fight in battalions, companies, and squadrons.Without camaraderie and support from others in battle, you cannot handle the mental and physical anguish of war. Shannon knew that, and she still walked alone across the Citadel checkerboard campus.
