United States V. Virginia Case Study

The case of United States v. Virginia (1996) deals with the issue on male only admissions for the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). The issue presented itself as a tricky one because there are still a lot of female only admission schools and VMI was the only male institution at the time. The case began its life in the Virginia Circuit Court and the issue was about VWIL not being equal to VMI. VMI’s admissions were for male only at the time. This case having an issue of constitutionality comes from the 14th amendment's equal protection clause being violated. This whole issue began in 1990 when a high school challenged the single sex admission policy while trying to enter VMI. The female high school student filed a complaint to the attorney

Virginia” by the United States Supreme Court found this issue to be unconstitutional due to the fact that it violated the 14th amendment’s equal protection clause. The majority reasoning for the judges on the Rehnquist Court was that having a male only school with male only admissions was unconstitutional and that VWIL was not even equal to VMI in the learning aspect of thing aswell how the facility’s weren't up to the same standards. The dissenting reasons for this case were that the judges agreed that VMI and VWIL were the exact same school and that the male only admissions shouldn’t be changed to allow females to attend the school. The citation for the case was “518 US 515”. This case was significant because it had to deal with equality for women and changing VMI’s history

Nadine has the attitude towards disliking Scalia but has a respect for his “good hard hitting dissents that keep you honest” she stated that he said. In the case of “United States vs.Virginia” Nadine said the Scalia stated “If it were impossible for individual human beings to act autonomously in effective pursuit of a common goal, the game of soccer would not exist.” Zylberberg’s article relates to the case of “United States vs. Virginia” by her stating and giving her opinion on Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion. Her article connects by listing his dissent against the ruling of the other Justices and since he was the only Justice that disagreed with the ruling in a 7 to 1 decision. Scalia thought that VMI should have kept their tradition of a male only admission school. This case relates to government because it has to do with male only admissions and if male only admissions had stayed at VMI then we could have had a ripple effect and have ended up with an all boy