ValleyForgeMilitaryAcademyreactsto Citadelcase

by Becky Raetsch assistant news editor

The feud over the admission of women to the Citadel, a formerly all-male military college in South Carolina, most recently resulted in the punishment of 11 upper-class male cadets on charges of hazing.

Student and staff reaction at neighboring Valley Forge Military Academy to the Citadel's decision to admit women was mixed. Student Jeff Sabatini, a sergeant major at Valley Forge Military Academy, thought that admitting women was controversial.

"If you put a female in an allmale environment, it changes the standards," Sabatini said.

On the other hand, Col. Rowe, dean of college students at Valley Forge Military Academy, reacted differently.

"It is the right decision. Public institutions have the right to educate all citizens," Rowe said.

The Citadel stands firmly behind its decision to integrate. General Clifton Poole, the acting president of the Citadel, sternly

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addressed the corps on the determination of the college to integrate female students.

"I have told members of the corps in the simplest terms possible that the quickest way out of this college for anyone is to in a way behave in an inappropriate manner toward one of the female cadets," Poole said at a news conference.

This fall, four women, Kim Messer, Jeanie Mentavlos, Nancy Mace, and Petra Loventiska, became the first to be admitted into the corps, receive the Citadel haircut, wear their uniform, and recite the Citadel oath.

On Jan. 12, 1997, Mentavlos and Messer announced they would not return to the Citadel for the spring semester due to the embarrassing and humiliating hazing that took place.

Senior cadets washed out the women's mouths with cleanser and set their clothing on fire: Messer said she was ordered to drink a pitcher of tea each day for a week, which caused her to get sick. She also said she was made to assume a "degrading position" on a trash can in another cadet's room. As she stood in formation, a male cadet rubbed his body against her, she said.

Rowe commented bow this is a demeaning process that serves no purpose.

Messer said, "When I became one of the first four female members of the corps of cadets at the Citadel, I was assured that I would be welcomed and given equal treatment.

"Unfortunately, this promise was broken by not only certain members of the corps, but by the Citadel's administration as well," Messer said.

A cadet captain at Valley Forge Military Academy, Luke Hightower, said, "They didn't get treated any differently than a male cadet would have."

Rowe refuses to believe that hazing has any place in the training of recruits.

"I am opposed to hazing in all forms. It doesn't build people," Rowe said.

"They think they have the license to act and not get pun- ished," Rowe said.

Poole said that 26 women have mailed in applications for enrollment at the Citadel, and they are encouraged and supported to take further steps and continue their plans for enrollment.

Messer said the system is "humane and fair" in theory, but neither humane nor fair in reality.

"I think people are saying the whole Citadel's wrong, there's something wrong with the whole school, and it's not the case," said Bryant Butler, regimental commander of the corps, the top student leadership position. "But in any organization, in the Army, in government, there are going to be individuals who are going to do things wrong, and we're going to take steps to correct those things."

Major Mrs. Hood, associate professor of English and transfer adviser at Valley Forge Military Academy, summed up the accounts of the Citadel hazing.

"I am horrified, just as any woman who is following this whole case," Hood said. "I am appropriately disgusted."