University of Virginia Library

A Quota Is A Quota

To paraphrase the immortal Bard, "A
quota by any other name would smell as
rotten," and a quota, despite whatever you
may hear from the Future of the University
Committee is what we are going to have when
women are admitted to the College next fall.

Basically, there are two reasons which
make it a rational imperative that women be
admitted to the College. The first, and lesser
of the two, is that it would be a good thing,
educationally and socially, to have them
around. The presence of a significant number
of the fairer sex might force the typical
Cavalier to accept the fact that women have
opinions on matters other than the proper
way to mix a mint julep; some Cavaliers might
even listen to, and profit from, those
opinions, both in and out of class.

But the most important reason for
admitting women, and the one that cannot be
argued, is simply this: Under the laws of this
country, to which the state of Virginia and
the Board of Visitors are presumably still
subject, women are entitled to the same
opportunity for admission and study here that
the state accords men. And try as Mr.
Hereford and the Board will, they cannot
disguise the fact that women are not going to
get that equal opportunity for at least five to
ten years.

Mr. Hereford's report attempts to justify
the quota system it prescribes by saying that the
University has made a commitment to the
state to educate a certain number of men and
that it cannot renege on that commitment. We
submit that the logic behind that commitment
is both illegal and unethical and should
therefore be disregarded.

The University and its Board of Visitors
have stood resolutely behind two principles in
the past, principles which they now appear
quite willing to discard. They have repeatedly
said, with regard to admission of minority
groups, that quota systems which attempt to
artificially insure that certain groups will be
represented in certain numbers are in conflict
with University policy. Yet the plan to admit
only a certain predesignated number of
women, regardless of the number of female
applicants, who qualify for admission in
competition with male applicants, is surely a
quota system.

Secondly, the University and the Board of
Visitors have stood forthrightly for "law and
order." It is an interesting facet of American
life that those who call most vigorously for
rule by law seem to think it is their right to
conduct themselves with impunity. Only the
disenfranchised whose lives they control must
be bound by law.

For the Board acted in flagrant violation of
the law for years by refusing to admit women
to the College when the Supreme Court had
ruled that such exclusion was illegal. The
Board is acting illegally still by denying access
to women on the same basis as men. Probably
it will take another suit to force the Visitors
to change this policy.

And if the illegality of the quota policy
isn't enough to dissuade the Board from its
avowed intention, perhaps the spectre of 350
entering students with no place in the
dormitories next year will be. That could be
another consequence of the decision not to
cut male admissions, unless the University
rescinds its rule that undergraduate women
must live in University housing. (That rule, by
the way, is but another example of the way in
which the University discriminates against
women; an 18-year-old second-year man can
live where he wants. A 20-year-old fourth-year
woman has to stay close by the University's
protective wing.) As things stand now, the
dorms will be hopelessly overcrowded next
year.

We doubt that the Board will reverse itself,
however. Under the logic that a group of aging
business leaders and political appointees
knows what's best for the University, the
Board will probably display the same type of
intransigence that has characterized its actions
in the past. We only hope that the Board and
the University Administration will cease to
call for rule by law and refrain from pious
statements against quota systems if the
present coeducation policy is not changed.