Alumni and Friends of VMI:
Cyber Corps Numbers: 485
The Football Season Cometh: The first game of the season
is a home game Sept 5 (1:00 PM) against Lenoir-Rhyne. OK. OK it
ain't Nebraska.
More Reviews for Gen Bunting's Book: I am told
that Gen Bunting's book has received very favorable reviews in
the National Review and the Weekly Standard.
Rat Attrition: Appears that attrition among the rats is about in
line with past years.
19 rats quit VMI during first week
Saturday, August 22, 1998
BY REX BOWMAN
Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
One woman and 18 men have dropped out of the Virginia Military
Institute
during their first week as freshmen "rats,"
establishing a normal
dropout rate for the school's second coeducational class.
As of last night, 424 students remained in the class, including
33
women.
Meanwhile, school officials say it's too early to tell how the
first women at VMI, now sophomores, will treat the newcomers. The
female cadets have said they'll treat the new women as harshly
and as fairly as they were treated when they arrived last
August.
The 22 sophomore women haven't had much of an opportunity to
interact
with the rats, however, because none made the rank necessary to
join the
elite cadet cadre that introduces rats to the harsh life of VMI.
"Several of the women have been asked to help out the cadre,
but they're
not in the cadre, so they're not in close contact with the
rats," school
spokesman Mike Strickler said.
The loss of 19 of the new class's 443 students constitutes a
dropout
rate of 4.5 percent, about average after a week of VMI's
"rat line."
Last year, 25 of 460 students -- 5.4 percent -- dropped out
within seven days of signing VMI's matriculation book.
The school's system of harassing rats, designed to force them to
rely on
each other, usually results in one of five cadets dropping out.
Five
percent of rats typically quit during the first grueling week,
and 9
percent go home after the first five weeks.
"VMI, as we know, is not for everybody," Strickler
said.
Ninety-two cadets, including 36 sophomores, make up the cadre
that
trains rats in VMI's ways. Classes start Monday, and Strickler
said life
will become easier for the rats once the rest of the upperclass
students
join the cadre on campus by tomorrow's 10 p.m. deadline.
"The cadre likes to say to the rats, 'You think it's hard
now, just wait
until the whole corps gets back, then it'll get a lot worse,'
" he said.
"But it's not; it's easier. Things settle down, classes
start, and you get into a routine."
Remember the Rat....: You probably remember the
rat who was suspended last year for striking another cadet. She
gained a great deal of respect by returning this year to begin
the rat line again. However.....
Suspended 'rat' returns to, quits VMI
Wednesday, August 26, 1998
BY REX BOWMAN
Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
Angelica Garza, a freshman at the Virginia Military Institute who
won
the respect of many cadets for her decision to return to school
this
year after being kicked out in 1997, has quit.
Garza, 19, cut her comeback short on Saturday night, packing up
and
returning to her Fort Belvoir home.
"I assume she made the choice that VMI wasn't for her,"
school spokesman
Mike Strickler said. "The first time she didn't have a
choice -- the
choice was made for her. But I guess this was her choice."
Yesterday her mother said Garza will not comment on her reasons
for
leaving the military school, where she had spent the last week as
a rat,
enduring the nonstop abuse of VMI's rat line.
Last August, Garza was suspended from VMI for a year after she
lost her cool while being chastised and took a swing at an
upperclassman. The punch missed its target but landed on another
upperclassman.
Garza vowed to return and did. Her appearance in the rat line
Wednesday
won the admiration of school officials and many cadets, who said
Garza
appeared in better physical shape this year and apparently had
spent
some time preparing for the abusive ordeal.
Garza is one of two female rats to have quit VMI so far.
Twenty-five
male rats also have abandoned the school since matriculating last
Monday. The 27 dropouts bring the school's attrition rate to 6
percent,
slightly above the normal 4.8 percent registered during the first
rigorous week at VMI.
The freshman class now numbers 416 students, including the
remaining 32
women.
VMI anticipates that as many as 90 rats could eventually drop out
of the
class.
Do You Also Remember...: From the memory lane
file, you probably also remember the three cadets who allegedly
hazed a rat last year. The following provides on update on their
situation.
Lawyer seeks to quash hazing indictments
The VMI cadets' attorney also argued that the law gives undue
power to
Virginia college heads and is unconstitutionally vague.
By MATT CHITTUM
THE ROANOKE TIMES
LEXINGTON -- The attorney for three Virginia
Military Institute
cadets indicted for hazing a freshman at the school last year
asked a
judge Wednesday to declare the law unconstitutional and quash the
indictments.
If Lexington attorney Tommy Spencer's motion
is successful, it will
be a nifty feat of legal judo -- using the victim's arguments
against
him.
In parts of his motion, made in Lexington
Circuit Court, Spencer
employed complaints about Virginia's hazing law made by the
family of
the victim, George Wade Jr. of Henrico County.
The law gives undue power to the heads of
Virginia colleges in
prosecuting hazing charges and is unconstitutionally vague in
defining
what kind of behavior constitutes hazing, Spencer argued.
The Wade family made the same complaints about
the law while
struggling to get justice for their son.
The special prosecutor in the case, Buena
Vista Commonwealth's
Attorney Mike Irvine, has a month to respond to Spencer's motion.
Rockbridge County Circuit Judge George E. Honts III will make a
ruling
then.
Wade left VMI last winter and later accused
three seniors of
striking him repeatedly on the buttocks with belts and coat
hangers. VMI
suspended the three seniors, Jonathan Gonzales of Mechanicsville,
Thomas Michael Upshaw of Caroline County and Charles Travers
"Buck"
Clemons of Richmond, but declined to charge them with hazing.
Under the common interpretation of Virginia's
60-year-old
anti-hazing law -- which was passed after a series of hazing
incidents
at VMI -- any criminal charge of hazing at a state school must
begin
with a finding of hazing by the school's head. At VMI, that would
be
Superintendent Josiah Bunting III.
The Wades complained that the law gives too
much discretion to the
college, which would be embarrassed by the publicity and might
open
itself to a lawsuit.
Spencer argued that the law unconstitutionally
usurps the power of
the commonwealth's attorney and gives it to the "presiding
officers" of
state colleges. The law is a violation of the separation of
powers
guaranteed by the constitution, he argued. The legislative branch
of
government cannot take power away from a member of the executive
branch,
which includes elected state prosecutors, Spencer wrote in a
brief
outlining his claims.
The law -- which says it is unlawful "to
haze, or otherwise mistreat
so as to cause bodily injury, any student at any school, college
or
university" -- also fails to define hazing clearly enough,
he argued.
The Wades have made the same complaint about
the law.
Kent Willis, director of the Virginia chapter
of the American Civil
Liberties Union, said Spencer "makes a good point."
"It probably has every deficiency you can
have in a law," he said.
"There should be some recourse for students who have been
assaulted in
this way, but if the law available is unconstitutional, then it's
time
to go back and fix it."
The Wades have said their mission in pursuing
the charges is to get
justice for their son, who is now attending an undisclosed
out-of-state
college, and to make VMI a safer place for other cadets.
If Spencer's argument prevails, George Wade
Sr. said, it would be a
loss for his son, but "at least he's accomplished one of his
goals.
"I think it definitely needs to go
through the legal system and be
straightened out," he said.
And Yet One More Update: Remember the three
seniors and rats drummed out last year? Here's an update.
Panel hears appeals of 6 expelled at VMI
Saturday, August 29, 1998
BY REX BOWMAN
Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
LEXINGTON -- Attorneys for three freshmen kicked out of Virginia
Military Institute in April over a spanking incident say they are
hopeful the students, and three expelled seniors, will be
reinstated now that the school's appeals committee has heard
their case.
Attorneys for the six students pleaded for reinstatement at a
closed-door hearing before the three-member committee yesterday.
"I would have to say that the people on the committee have a
better understanding of what's at stake here now," attorney
Bernhardt Wruble said after leaving the hearing.
"I was very hopeful when I went in, and I'd say I'm
optimistic now that at least these three people heard us,"
said co-attorney J. Steven Grist. "At least they have an
open mind."
VMI's Honor Court expelled the six students in April after
determining that they lied to cover up a series of spanking
incidents in which the seniors struck the freshmen, known in VMI
parlance as "rats."
The rats were accused of violating the Honor Code after they told
student investigators that they had never been hit by their
"dykes," the seniors assigned to be their mentors.
The seniors were drummed out of the cadet corps after the Honor
Court found that they had lied when they denied striking their
rats.
VMI's Honor Code has but one penalty for lying, cheating or
stealing: expulsion.
In federal court, attorneys for the six cadets have argued that
their expulsions were unfair because all of them were awakened in
the dead of night by a group of students and interrogated about
the spankings. The six contend that their false statements should
not have been used against them because they were not afforded
protection from self-incrimination and their statements were
coerced during the midnight interrogations.
Attorneys for the six have argued that the investigative
techniques violated the students' constitutional rights. U.S.
District Judge James C. Turk refused to rule on the matter,
though, saying they should exhaust their appeals to VMI officials
before coming back to court.
VMI's board of visitors takes up the matter this morning in a
closed-door session. Appeals committee
Chairman Robert B. Crotty said the committee will not make a
recommendation to the board but will simply pass on what the
attorneys argued yesterday.
Crotty declined to comment further.
Wruble said he and Grist stayed away from constitutional issues
in their presentation to the committee yesterday; instead they
called into question VMI's procedures. For instance, he said, the
six expelled cadets were forced to stand trial together, and the
Honor Court allowed hearsay into evidence. Under Virginia law,
defense attorneys have a right to petition for separate trials
for their clients, and hearsay evidence is not allowed.
"If I were on the board, I would ask, 'Is this really the
way you want to run VMI? Do you really want to defend this?'
" Wruble said.
The freshmen also contend that they were caught between
conflicting loyalties: The Honor Code forbids lying, but the
freshman handbook, known as the rat bible, demands absolute
loyalty to the dykes.
The freshmen are Brandon M. Crane, Arnold Jesse Gore and Terence
M. Redmond. The ex-seniors are Donald Evans, Jason Roderiques and
Phantamith Prompol.
Hey that's it for this week.
Yours in the Spirit,
RB Lane '75
Last Updated: October 11, 2009
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