On this day in ...... 1839 (170 years ago today), in the town of Lexington, the Virginia Military Institute opened its doors to cadets whom it housed in an old arsenal building. For more than a century it was a public institution where men studied for bachelor's degrees. That changed after issuance of United States v. Virginia (1996), in which the U.S. Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, held that the single-sex admissions policy violated the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. (credit for 2008 AP photo, by Don Peterson, of then-Vice President Dick Cheney at VMI)
(Prior November 11 posts are here and here.)
