And her daddy was one of the Citadel higher ups, so she was fairly well protected. Compare her to the first woman who was admitted in the 70s 90s, who had to sue for the privilege. I remember that she dropped out because she received tons of hate mail and faced hostile classmates.
The first woman to graduate from the Citadel was in 1970, but she wasn’t in the corps. She was one of six women who enrolled as part of a special extension program or something for aspiring teachers, I think.
You’re probably thinking of Shannon Faulkner, who was the first woman to enroll in the Citadel’s Corps of Cadets in 1995, and she did have to sue to force the Citadel to admit her. She dropped out after Hell Week, along with 30 other cadets, which isn’t unusual for those types of programs. Of course, the assholes there had to say “We told you so!” instead of acknowledging that those programs are tough and are designed to force a certain percentage of people to quit, regardless of gender.
My alma mater of Texas A&M has its own history of discrimination, but they did admit women to their corps of cadets without being forced to by a lawsuit, way back in 1974. Unfortunately, they did have to be sued to allow women to join the band, which didn’t happen until 1989, when I was a sophomore there.
I am. D’oh! I mistakenly wrote 1970s when I meant to write 1990s. I will fix.
I do remember that Faulkner faced overt hostility from the other cadets. Indeed, I just looked her up on Wikipedia and it confirms what I remember:
Faulkner enrolled after a successful lawsuit, Faulkner v. Jones et al., against the military academy.[7][8] The suit alleged that the Citadel, which received state money, was “denying her equal protection under the Constitution”.[9]
The Citadel allowed Faulkner to attend classes in January 1994 as a civilian student, which meant she had to be off campus by the time retreat was played. She was not allowed to reside in the barracks nor wear the cadet’s uniform.[11]
She then returned to the infirmary, where she spent the remainder of that week before washing out, citing emotional and psychological abuse and physical exhaustion.[6] Faulkner was one of thirty cadets to drop out.[15] When her withdrawal from the Citadel was announced, upperclassmen celebrated their return to an all-male school, with one cadreman leading the recruits in an altered marching song of "Marching down the avenue.
In 1999, Nancy Mace, daughter of the Citadel’s Commandant of Cadets, became the first woman to graduate from the Corps of Cadets program,[25] receiving a degree in business administration.[26]
Please stop referring to Chess as a “sport.” If your chess game has degenerated to something that can legitimately be called a sport, something has gone horribly wrong.
People that want to gamble with do so on anything. Which bird will fly away first, who can spit into a cup from farthest away, what will idiots like Atal Mashwani suggest banning today? Is something going to be done to address all these things too?
Watch for a local variation of this, coming soon to a USA location near you.
My guess is the latter fact got her either free tuition or highly discounted tuition. Normally, people who enter these specialized ROTC programs like the Citadel or Texas A&M’s Corps of Cadets do so for two reasons: 1. To be commissioned as an officer in the US military upon graduation without going to one of the main military academies, and/or 2. For the connections. Family tradition could be another reason, and Mace’s father wasn’t just the Commandant, he was the Citadel’s most decorated alumnus.
By the way, speaking of gender nonconformity, this is what Nancy Mace looked like as a cadet at the Citadel:
Even without reading the original Wikipedia article, I have a sense of how physically harmed she must have been by that so-called ‘emotional and psychological abuse’.
And this is the moment where I realise that I recognise Daniel Graham and it was not just coincidence. He is one of the arseholes who gave me PTSD and chased me out of Carlisle.
Since he hasn’t changed much in 20 years it is probably safe to say that he is still a fascist.