FIRlnGLlne BRIGADIER GENERAL ROGER CLIFTON POOLE

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1 The copyright laws of the United States (Title 17, U.S. Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. If a user makes a request for, or later uses a photocopy or reproduction (including handwritten copies) for purposes in excess of fair use, that user may be liable for copyright infringement. Users are advised to obtain permission from the copyright owner before any re-use of this material. Use of this material is for private, non-commercial, and educational purposes; additional reprints and further distribution is prohibited. Copies are not for resale. All other rights reserved. For further information, contact Director, Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, CA Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University. HOST: 0 FIRlnGLlne GUEST: WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR. BRIGADIER GENERAL ROGER CLIFTON POOLE SUBJECT: 'WHAT REALLY HAPPENED AT THE CITADEL?" FIRING LINE is produced and directed by WARREN STEIBEL. This is a transcript of the FIRING LINE program #2634/ 1123, taped at South Carolina E1V in Columbia on April 29, 1997, and telecast later on public television stations. copyright 1997 FIRING LINE Transcripts and videocassettes available through Producers Incorporated for Television, 2700 Cypress Street, Columbia, SC /

2 MR. BUCKLEY: The Citadel and its 1800 cadets, whose progenitors were given military training at The Citadel beginning before the Civil War, has been in the news what seems incessantly for some years now. We have its president, General Roger Poole, here to help us achieve an informed orientation in the matter. One question before the house: Should a state retain the right to operate a single-gender educational facility?, is closed. That is to say, the Supreme Court has ruled on the matter, leaving us free only to say that the Supreme Court is sometimes "a ass, a idiot", to use the language of Charles Dickens in Oli11er Twist. [laughter] We cannot, of course, defy the ruling of the court, but we are still free to discuss the consequences of its rulings, and one of them gave us the ingredients of a situation at The Citadel about which we are concretely concerned today, namely: Why hasn't The Citadel succeeded in protecting such as the two of its female students who left during the '"rinter term in protest against quite vicious hazing. Roger Clifton Poole himself is a graduate of The Citadel, where he majored in English, going on to take a doctorate in finance at the University of South Carolina and to do post-doctoral work a the London School of Economics. He attained the rank of brigadier general before retiring to serve as president pro tem of The Citadel. There in December the two women cadets left and have filed suit in protest against the hazing from which they suffered. Two questions have been raised publicly: The first, how did the offending students--,vho have been, by the way, identified and punished--get away "rith it? The second, vvas 60 Minutes correct in alleging that there had been a cover-up? General Poole, could we begin by asking: Was extreme action by one or more 19-year-old jerks--to use the word you used--predictable from the culture clash? Did such things happen at West Point and Annapolis when coeducation set in? GEN. POOLE: \!Vell, yes, sir, whenever you have a change in culture, as we are experiencing there, going from 153 years of single-genderness to a coed environment, there are going to be bumps in the road. As a matter of fact, when the service academies went coed, you know, they had incidents too. And as a matter of fact, it has been 20 years and they still have events that occur that are not to their liking or their acceptability. But the fact that the service academies had difficulty is no reason for us to say, you know, that we 1

3 should have difficulty. We adopted the decision to go single-gender \vithout being told by the Supreme Court. The decision that was made last June was a decision regarding the Virginia Military Institute, not The Citadel. However, our board of directors took the VMI decision as to be a clear signal from the highest court in the land that single gender was not going to be accepted at state institutions and we went ahead voluntaiily to go coed. We went fonvard in good faith and good conscience. We vvrote an assimilation plan to bring females into our corps of cadets. This assimilation plan in July of '96 was taken to the judge in the federal court. He reviewed the plan in conjunction with the Justice Department and essentially our plan \Vas accepted. MR. BUCKLEY: What does a simulation plan mean? GEN. POOLE: It v.ras the strategy that we put fo1ward to move ourselves from a single-gender corps of cadets to a coed corps of cadets, exactly which steps we would take and how we would go about accomplishing this transition. MR. BUCKLEY: You call that a simulation plan. GEN. POOLE: Well, sir, vve call it an assimilation plan as opposed to an accommodation. We '''ere not trying to accommodate women into the South Carolina corps of cadets, \1ve v.rere truly trying to assimilate women into the corps and make them a successful part of our long gray line. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, most people recall that a young woman called Shannon Faulkner-- GEN. POOLE: Yes, sir. MR. BUCKLEY: --was there the year before and she had a pretty rough time, and the question so widely raised is, given h ''" rough a time she had, oughtn't your "simulation" plan have gone into higher gear than it did in such a way as to perhaps prevent what actually happened? GEN. POOLE: Well, Mr. Buckley, if you will allo\ V me, Shannon Faulkner was ordered into the corps of cadets by Judge Houck, the federal judge. Shannon Faullrner essentially,,vas in the corps of cadets four hours before she went to the hospital as being ill. So there was almost nothing that happened 2

4 to her while she was in the corps of cadets. All she did was sign in and draw uniforms and eat lunch. What she has indicated is, it was the stress of her battle to get into the corps that caused her the most difficulty. Nothing happened to her while she was there. We were fully ready to cany out the judge's order and assimilate her into the corps as well. MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, I'm not suggesting that during those four hours she was tortured. [laughter] GEN. POOLE: Yes, sir. MR. BUCKLEY: I am suggesting that in anticipation of the inhospitality of the student body, certain psychological misgivings took over and caused her quick withdrawal. My own feeling in the matter is that the kind of school that is so carefully monitored as absolutely to prevent that kind of thing is impossible to administer if you want civic relationships. I mean, after all, people in prisons, which are ve1y highly monitored, get tortured, killed, raped, whatever. So how historically do you predict the treatment of those two girls will be received--as simply, as you call it, a necessa1y bump in the road? GEN. POOLE: Well, I would like not to think it \Vas a necessary bump. It \Vas something that happened: it was wrong; some young men did some things that were inappropriate and far beyond the scope of \vhat we allow, and for that they were punished. Several of those young men \ivere punished rather severely, because they are no longer at the institution. MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. Okay, now \ vhat about the charge, made most conspicuously in 60 Minutes, that there was a cover-up? GEN. POOLE: Yes, sir. MR. BUCKLEY: I know you are indignant at the mere mention of it, but go ahead and express your indignation in any way you want. [laughter] GEN. POOLE: As a matter of fact, last week, on Tuesday of last week, we finally got sworn depositions from the t\<\'o young men who made those allegations on 60 Minutes, and I have given a lengthy interview to the Post and Courier in Charleston, which published an article which laid this out for eve1yone to see. But these young men in their sworn statements--one of them particularly--indicated that they never really said that I lrnew there were 3

5 things going on, that the commandant lrnevv that things were going on, or even Captain Ellis, who was their tack officer, lrnevv that things were going on. They indicated that the editing of the tape for 60 Minutes was done in such a way that it gave the impression they made that statement, and they have since denied that as being a true statement. They say in S\vorn deposition that as far as they knew, none of us lrnew that things were happening to the \vomen that should not have been happening to the women. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, are you retroactively satisfied that the news of what did happen reached your office expeditiously? GEN. POOLE: No, sir, I am not. As a matter of fact, I was flabbergasted that I did not know these things were going on. In this assimilation plan that I was telling you about, it was structured to take care of all these kind of situations. We have a chain of command for reporting things, and we have a control system for controlling things in the barracks. But we weren't foolish enough to think that after 153 years we could depend on a chain of command, a hierarchal relationship among cadets and officers to take care of a ve1y unusual situation for us, which would be women introduced into the barracks for the first tin1e. So in addition to our plan we had several back doors of reporting systems built into the plan, that the only persons who kneyv about that were us and the \vomen. And we thought that vvould be adequate. We had a system built in vvhere the women were introduced to a female active duty officer and instructed that, you know, they could go to this officer at any time and let us find out anything they needed us to know, or they could put forth any information that they wanted to through this system, and no one would know but this tack officer, who would then communicate with the appropriate people in the commands. MR. BUCKLEY: There's a conflicting ethos there, isn't there, because- There are tvvo. One is that transgressions of that kind ought to be reported upstairs. Another is that you don't tell on your fellmv students. How do you resolve that conflict? GEN. POOLE: Well, you know, you really put your finger on a fact of human nature which is going to be very difficult to resolve. And that is one of the reasons we had the back doors built in. We realized this could possibly be a conflict, and '"'e thought that maybe the females would be more comfortable going to a female officer, who would say, I will deal with these things for you and do it quietly. We thought that would be a very good 4

6 escape clause. It turned out it was not, and I want to be ve1y clear on that. We were rather flabbergasted that we had three or four reporting systems built in that no one knew about but us and the females and they did not \Vork. How are we going to deal with human nature that you don't squeal, I think, is the ethos you're speaking of. You know, I don't know, that is something that is built into people. The only thing I can think of at this moment, which is what we will be attempting to do, is more education for all the cadets. MR. BUCKLEY: In this situation was it just two victims and t\vo aggressors, or were there two victiff1s, two aggressors, and x number of witnesses? GEN. POOLE: It vvas all of those things, sir. There were more than two victims. There were more than two aggressors. In total I punished 14 cadets. Some of them were punished because they knew what had gone on and had not reported it. And when these events took place, you know, there were male cadets, fourth class cadets, freshmen, involved as well. So it was rather pervasive at the moment the transgressions took place. MR. BUCKLEY: Now is discipline in such situations as these exclusively in your hands or does it become a state criminal activity? GEN. POOLE: Well, first and foremost, within our organization, the discipline and training of the cadet corps is the direct responsibility of the commandant of cadets-- MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. GEN. POOLE: --but \vho does report to me. The president of the institution does not go around and t1y to enforce discipline. However, you may get an argument from the cadets that that's not true, that I do stick my nose in occasionally and I make corrections. But essentially it's the commandant's responsibility. Now in terms of \vhether the state gets involved or not, it would depend on whether \ve had violated some state regulation or statute, and the only statute that is really on the books other than criminal statutes,,vould be the statute of hazing. And if we violate those statutes, the state can become involved. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, who becomes the defendant, The Citadel or just the 5

7 students involved? GEN. POOLE: Well, I would imagine The Citadel--and I am not an attorney-- MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. GEN. POOLE: --though I have spent a lot of time with attorneys in the last several years [laughter] and maybe by osmosis I have absorbed some of this. But my thoughts would be that the institution itself would not become involved as a party unless you could demonstrate in some way that the institution was a party to the act--you know, they condoned it, they tolerated it, or encouraged it. So the violations of state regulation statutes would be between the offended parties, you know, no different than you would have at a regular coed college. You know, just because you're a student at institutions-- MR. BUCKLEY: Right. GEN. POOLE: --you do not give up your civil rights. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, who are the defendants in the pending la,,vsuit, the cadets or you too? GEN. POOLE: You knm v, as far as I knmv at this time, no lawsuit has been filed. MR. BUCKLEY: I see. Well now, General--sorry, I've got something in my throat--you were identified, as were, I think, three-quarters of the people who were asked about it, as believing that the old traditions in The Citadel were good and should be continued. Now the courts having ruled to the contra1y, you are, so to speak, doing your duty, but in the course of doing your duty, are you committed to the proposition that The Citadel can't hope to be as successful as it \\'as before? GEN. POOLE: Mr. Buckley, I really vvish The Citadel '"'ere a single-gender institution, but I know that's not possible, and this is a true statement for all the staff, the faculty, and the board of our institution, and the huge, vast majority of the corps of cadets. \A/e understand that for 153 years we were a fine academic institution, a single-gender corps of cadets, but now our future 6

8 is that as a coed corps. And we are committed to being successful. As a matter of fact, our mission is to be the best coed milita1y college in America. You ki1ov.r, that is our stated mission and it's what we're going to t1y to accomplish. The fact that we were a single-gender institution really does not make us wrong or evil, because as vve carried out our policies, we were not aware that we \Vere in violation of the law of the land. As a matter of fact, our board said several years ago, when we first started defending the concept of single-gender education, that as soon as they had a clear signal that we were wrong, that they 'vould change. And on June 26 of last year, the VMI decision \Vas handed dovm by the Supreme Court and on June 28th our board of directors decided that this school would go coed and go coed immediately. MR. BUCKLEY: Is that commitment said with a sense of resignation, or has your thinking during the past year or two or three or whatever evolved into thinking, \vell, maybe after all, you are better off with a coeducational situation? GEN. POOLE: You know, the board of directors of our school, the board of visitors, the vast majority of senior administrators at our school are graduates of the institution, and as young 21-year-old men we stood in the cadet chapel and swore an oath to defend the Constitution of this land against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. We are not the kind of people who are going to go against our count1y or the Constitution. We are also by nature a milita1ytype organization and we are driven by this concept of accomplishing the mission and being successful. The decision has been made that we are going to be a coed institution, and so now all our focus, all our heart and soul, is going into being the best coed military institution in America. There is no reluctance on our part to achieve. We are coff1petitive by nature, and-- MR. BUCKLEY: I'm sure of that, but do the protocols,,vhich you understand and accept, both as an American citizen and as commandant of The Citadel, do they oblige you to be cheerful and enthusiastic on the subject? [laughter] GEN. POOLE: No, sir, they don't oblige me to be cheerfully enthusiastic. I'm enthusiastic because I'm enthusiastic about our future. You kno\v, we are still the same fine academic institution \Ve were before we went coed, and empirical data shows us over time at other institutions, the one thing that will happen to your academic standards when you go coed is they are going to go 7

9 ~ - Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University. up. They are going to rise as women join the academics. And that's happened time and time again, so you know, we are ve1y cheerful about our future as an academic institution. We never said that women could not do the things that '"'e asked of our male cadets in the corps of cadets. As a matter of fact, we have two women in the corps now. We lost t\vo, we still have two. The two we have left-- MR. BUCKLEY: Are doing very well. GEN. POOLE: --are achieving magnificently. One is a ve1y, ve1y top academic student, with a grade point average in excess of 3. 7, and both are fine milita1y students, both are fine physical specimens in terms of PT and one of them is an outstanding intercollegiate athlete. So we are ve1y happy with the two women \1ve have, and we are successful. And you know, Mr. Buckley, that's 50 percent, and that's not an attrition rate or a success rate that we think is great, but after 20 years the service academies are still experiencing an attrition rate of females above 30 percent. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, you send out \vhat is called The Citadel Editorial Backgrounder, and one page says "Numerous studies (see pages 13-18) have been conducted, and the results are clear and consistent. Students who attend single-gender schools are more likely to succeed above and beyond students at coeducational schools." You make it sound as sort of a permanent affirmation, a postulate. So are you saying that you hope to be the best in the country, best coeducational academy in the count1y, but you can't hope to be as good as you once,,vere? GEN. POOLE: No, sir. We are going to be different, is what we are going to be, sir. Going coed does not take away from the ve1y nature of a belief that there is value in single-gender education. There is value in single-gender education for both males and females. And there is empirical evidence to support that certain people not only survive single-gender education, they actually thrive in it. There are people for whom single-gender education is the right answer for them. That opportunity now has been taken away from us, and the opportunity for young men to come to an institution like The Citadel and experience a single-gender education has been taken away. So maybe some of those people are going to not be as well off. But that does not mean that we cannot achieve and succeed as a coed institution. MR. BUCKLEY: But there is an ingredient in The Citadel that doesn't 8

10 apply at the University of South Carolina, and that is that your orientation is milita1y. Now we're going through great turmoil in Aberdeen and in Oklahoma and elsewhere over what seems like systematic se,xual harassment. GEN. POOLE: Yes, sir. MR. BUCKLEY: People are looking at the whole notion of an army and barracks and men and women with a slightly less sanguine look. Is The Citadel's experience in some way a reflection of that general tension in the milita1y when people of both sexes are hand-in-hand? GEN. POOLE: Mr. Buckley, we've been at it, what, six or seven months, and we've only had four women, so I don't think we present enough empirical evidence to say that there is any kind of a trend. At this point, I'd like to think that what we've had is an incident along the road to us becoming a coed institution that's ve1y successful. But the two women we still have are succeeding extremely successfully and they are completely accepted into the corps of cadets by the cadets. I have faith and hope that we are going to become the best single coed institution in America. I think we're going to succeed. MR. BUCKLEY: Can we predict on the basis of what has happened at Annapolis and West Point what The Citadel will be like 20 years from now in terms of that particular question? GEN. POOLE: Well, there would be a logical extrapolation, let's say, that we're going to go down the road that the service academies have gone dmvn, with one exception. The service academies are federal and they have a mission that's different from our institution's. The service academies mission is essentially to develop officers for the Defense Department's various branches. The mission of The Citadel is we're developing leaders for all walks of life. Only about 35 percent of our graduates even take commissions in the military service. The vast majority of them do not even take commissions. They go to professional schools, graduate schools, medical schools, and on into industry. So we 're not-- MR. BUCKLEY: You mean there is no sense of obligation? GEN. POOLE: No, sir, none whatsoever. It's a volunta1y thing. 9

11 MR. BUCKLEY: Even though their way is wholly paid for? Or is it? GEN. POOLE: No-- MR. BUCKLEY: At West Point, nobody has to pay anything-- GEN. POOLE: That's-- MR. BUCKLEY: So there's a sense of obligation. GEN. POOLE: Yes, sir, at The Citadel, no one is paying their vvay. If someone comes there with a scholarship that is provided by the Defense Department, they have an obligation to the Defense Department and they would have to fill that. MR. BUCKLEY: As though they were ROTC. GEN. POOLE: That's right, sir. But eve1ybody in our institution does military training. Eve1ybody is in the corps, and eve1ybody takes ROTC, but eve1ybody is not required to take a commission. They may choose whether they take a commission or not. MR. BUCKLEY: Well now, if there is no subsidy for individual cadets, what is it that especially attracted young women to it? GEN. POOLE: I think it's the success of our graduates. Our graduates have achieved a status where they have recognition. They are recognized not only in civilian life but in the military life. MR. BUCKLEY: And this is relieves them -- the indignity of attending the University of South Carolina? [laughter] GEN. POOLE: \Nell, sir, no'"' I am a graduate of the University of South Carolina [laughter} and I didn't consider it an indignity. It was just different. MR. BUCKLEY: So they go to The Citadel because of its special attributes-- GEN. POOLE: We do-- 10

12 - I Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University. MR. BUCKLEY: --academic and other. GEN. POOLE: Sir, you know, we do a little bit more for our students than other institution than other institutions in the sense that you lrnow, yes, you can come to our school and earn a degree in English, as I did, or in math, or in biology, in chemistry, physics, whatever. But in addition to your academic program earning your degree, we have a co-curriculum educational program which is designed to develop our cadets in mind, body, and spirit, and it's a schedule that they have to meet and live under, there are requirements they have to meet. We give them a training schedule which virtually takes up 24 hours of their day. We tell them '"'hen they can do eve1ything, including when they go to bed. MR. BUCKLEY: \!\Thy do cadets who don't have in mind a life in the milita1y voluntarily submit to such schedules and such discipline? GEN. POOLE: Because they see the value of the price they pay to go through the training and the development. They realize that they develop something that either they don't have or don't have enough of. They think that by doing this they are going to become better leaders for whatever position they take in life. I'm. not a milita1y man. I went to The Citadel. Now I had a milita1y career but it was as a reserve officer and I served on active duty several times, but essentially I am. an academic, and I went to The Citadel and I went there for those ve1y reasons. First, I,.vas one of the people who thought I would benefit from single-gender education, that it was for me, it was the thing for me to do. I also admired Citadel graduates I had knmvn, I admired the reputation they had, and I wanted to be like them, and so I chose to go to that institution as opposed to the University of South Carolina as an undergraduate. And I never have regretted it. MR. BUCKLEY: And you might not have made the decision if it had been a male-female college? GEN. POOLE: Had it been a coed school, I probably-- MR. BUCKLEY: Coed, yes. GEN. POOLE: --would not have gone there, that's true. But that was years ago, Mr. Buckley, that was a long time ago. [laughter] MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you, General Poole of The Citadel; thank you, ladies and gentlemen. 1 l