Equal Protection Clause

The Virginia Military Institute was a higher education school in Virginia. It claimed to train the leaders of the future, or “citizen-soldiers” and impart to its students great discipline; however, it only enrolled male students. In 1996, the United States government sued the state of Virginia and the Virginia Military Institute for its male-only policy as a violation of the Fourteenth amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The District Court ruled in the school’s favor. The Fourth Circuit “reversed and ordered Virginia to remedy the constitutional violation” (Van Camp). In return, Virginia proposed a similar program for women: the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership, which would be located at Mary Baldwin College, a private liberal arts
Nagel argues that there are two standards for evaluating these systems of allocation: consequentialist standards and deontological standards. Consequentialist standards value things based on the results they produce. On the contrary, deontological standards “evaluate each system” on its intrinsic character (Nagel 48). Regarding the case, Nagel would agree with the Supreme Court’s decision. He acknowledges that there are natural differences between the two sexes that cannot be changed, however, he states that “providing equal educational opportunities for all persons of equal ability is an important part of social justice” (Nagel 50). He presents three conditions for inequality: a social arrangement that “assigns different expectations to men and women”, better results for men than for women, and eradication of these differences would “require sacrifices in welfare or general socioeconomic equality” (Nagel
The society is comfortable when it comes to buying and selling sexual activities (thus, treating them as commodities), but simultaneously, the society also prohibits women to “[choose] to market their sexual or reproductive services” (Radin 134). Selling sexual services may not be ideal, but it may also be the best option to those who choose to do so. Radin also goes further to explain that in order to solve this double bind, we must dissolve it, and remove the oppressive circumstances (Radin 135). To connect it back to the case, yes, there was a double bind present in this situation. As Radin mentions, there are two different ways to think about justice: one that is in the ideal world and the other nonideal (Radin 135). In an ideal world, women would be allowed to enroll in VMI, or would have an institution for them that is the same. The ruling of this case brought us closer to the ideal justice, stating that male-only enrollment into VMI was unjust and