United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515, 76 (1996)

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590

UNITED STATES v. VIRGINIA

Scalia, J., dissenting

6. Finally, the absence of a precise "all-women's analogue" to VMI is irrelevant. In Mississippi Univ. for Women v. Hogan, 458 U. S. 718 (1982), we attached no constitutional significance to the absence of an all-male nursing school. As Virginia notes, if a program restricted to one sex is necessarily unconstitutional unless there is a parallel program restricted to the other sex, "the opinion in Hogan could have ended with its first footnote, which observed that 'Mississippi maintains no other single-sex public university or college.' " Brief for Cross-Petitioners in No. 94-2107, p. 38 (quoting Mississippi Univ. for Women v. Hogan, supra, at 720, n. 1).

Although there is no precise female-only analogue to VMI, Virginia has created during this litigation the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership (VWIL), a state-funded all-women's program run by Mary Baldwin College. I have thus far said nothing about VWIL because it is, under our established test, irrelevant, so long as VMI's all-male character is "substantially related" to an important state goal. But VWIL now exists, and the Court's treatment of it shows how far reaching today's decision is.

VWIL was carefully designed by professional educators who have long experience in educating young women. The program rejects the proposition that there is a "difference in the respective spheres and destinies of man and woman," Bradwell v. State, 16 Wall. 130, 141 (1873), and is designed to "provide an all-female program that will achieve substantially similar outcomes [to VMI's] in an all-female environment," 852 F. Supp. 471, 481 (WD Va. 1994). After holding a trial where voluminous evidence was submitted and making detailed findings of fact, the District Court concluded that "there is a legitimate pedagogical basis for the different means employed [by VMI and VWIL] to achieve the sub-

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