The Supreme Court's decision effectively opened VMI to women.
The Supreme Court's ruling on June 26, 1996, in United States v. Virginia, effectively ended the Virginia Military Institute's exclusion of women, compelling the institution to admit female cadets or forgo public support entirely. This landmark decision underscored the constitutional principle that sex-based discrimination must be conclusively justified, and failures to do so would contravene the Equal Protection Clause. Consequently, VMI began preparing to integrate women into its historically all-male cadet corps, a monumental shift that symbolized a deeper commitment within public education toward gender equality and set a precedent for similar cases nationwide.