In United States v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court affirms that the male-only admissions policy of the state-supported Virginia Military Institute violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The lawsuit pits the federal government against the Commonwealth of Virginia over the male-only policy of the state’s Virginia Military Institute. The state built what it termed an equivalent women’s program nearby, called the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership, to bypass the constitutional mandate of equal protection of the laws. However, the Court finds that the women’s program is not comparable in prestige or academic programming to VMI and orders the men’s school to admit women.