NATION IN BRIEF : VIRGINIA : Sex Bias Case Begins for Military School

Virginia Military Institute’s male-only tradition is unconstitutional and outdated now that women have proved themselves at federal military academies and in war, a Justice Department attorney said at the beginning of the government’s sex discrimination case against the school. Scores of women have expressed interest in attending the institute of 1,300 cadets in Lexington, the attorney said. An institute attorney argued that the “egalitarian, demanding and Spartan conditions essential to the efficacy of the VMI educational experience cannot be replicated in a coeducational setting.” The Virginia school and The Citadel in Charleston, S. C., are the nation’s only state-supported, all-male military colleges.