AND THEN THERE WERE TWO...

By ELIZABETH GLEICK/CHARLESTON

The week before Kim Messer and Jeanie Mentavlos announced that they were leaving the Citadel because they no longer felt safe on campus, interim Citadel president R. Clifton Poole was planning to send a letter to alumni telling them how well the assimilation of females into the 154-year-old South Carolina military college had gone. "We were feeling really good, really proud," says Poole. "Now I have to send a letter to a lot of angry alumni explaining what went wrong."

It will be interesting to see what Poole chooses to tell those alums. For until state and federal authorities complete their criminal investigation, it will remain unclear exactly how and why the new system fell apart so fast. Mentavlos and Messer, two of the four women who entered the Citadel last August after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that public, male-only military academies were unconstitutional, claim that they were assaulted and sexually harassed. Despite a careful, court-approved assimilation plan intended to ensure the women's safety, Messer and Mentavlos say that fingernail polish was smeared on them and ignited, that they were forced to sing obscene songs, that their mouths were washed out with cleanser, that they were forced to drink iced tea until they vomited. They also say that when they reported these and other incidents to their superiors, no action was taken. Mentavlos' brother, a senior and an honors student, also left the Citadel.

So far, 11 cadets have been implicated (one has resigned from the school), and Poole is taking a tough stance with the remaining 1,700. In a closed meeting last week, he warned them, "I'm turning up the heat. There will be no more beginning steps when it comes to violations such as these. We will go immediately to the intermediate step of automatic suspension. And if what you did meets the definition of hazing as outlined by the state of South Carolina, then I will turn you over to the state authorities and let them deal with you."

From the point of view of Mentavlos and Messer, though, this is too little, too late. The Citadel fought a long and bitter battle against coeducation, with cadets sending up a great cheer of victory when Shannon Faulkner, the first female entrant, left campus in 1995 after only six days. And this entrenched attachment to its all-male traditions may have helped foster a belief on campus that hostility toward the new female knobs--as Citadel freshmen are called--would be tolerated, or at least overlooked, by the administration. For coeducation to work, more than a written plan was needed. "Somebody would have to be a moron [to let this happen]," says Paul Gibson, the South Carolina attorney retained by Messer and her parents. "They knew the eyes of the world were upon them."

Some at the Citadel insist they were monitoring the progress of the young women. Regimental Commander Bryant Butler says he takes what happened "very personally." The highest-ranking student, Butler spent hours working on the assimilation plan, which included a female-friendly chain of command to help with any concerns. According to Butler, Messer and Mentavlos did apparently use those channels--but then stopped. When a female supervisor checked in with them right before Thanksgiving and asked them if they had been experiencing any problems, they replied no, both Poole and Butler claim. "I don't understand why all of a sudden they chose not to come to me or go to someone else," says Butler.

Some students on campus also question Messer's and Mentavlos' accounts, pointing out that Nancy Mace and Petra Lovetinska, the two other female knobs, are doing well. These people argue that the hazing was not about gender but about perceived weakness, especially as two males were being hazed at the same time; and of the 581 entering freshmen, 81 so far have dropped out. "Because it happened to others doesn't make it right," responds Mentavlos' lawyer, Timothy Kulp, who says his current bedside reading includes both The Lords of Discipline, Pat Conroy's famous novel about hazing at the Citadel, and The Lord of the Flies.

Nevertheless, talk on campus persists that Messer and Mentavlos were not making the cut, while cadets commonly use superlatives when talking about Mace and Lovetinska. Says Brett Strand, a junior: "I've heard it from more than one person, they're some of the best knobs we've ever had." But Gibson insists that his client, Messer, a member of ROTC in high school, was as tough as they come. Adds Kulp: "Were this a situation where after the first week [Mentavlos] was calling it quits, as did a number of male cadets, maybe that might be worthy of analysis. But she completed the semester. She is holding her head high."

The women have not decided whether to take legal action, though their lawyers are exploring a number of options, including civil-rights and breach-of-contract suits. But even without a lawsuit, their departure will undoubtedly force a sharp reexamination of the Citadel's "fourth class system," in which all knobs are subjected to a certain amount of hazing--a system Conroy, Citadel class of '67, described in his book as a "psychic rape." For one thing, even some important alumni are furious about the scandal. "Don't give us heritage and tradition and all that bull___," Hampton Walker, the head of the Citadel's alumni association, told the South Carolina Post and Courier last week, blasting the school's administration. "Do something about the problems." Already, the school has received E-mail from many people saying they will never hire a Citadel graduate, while federal funds the school was counting on to help establish a criminal-justice program have suddenly been withdrawn.

Last week Mentavlos and Messer, who have become friends, were busy settling in at their new school, the University of South Carolina at Columbia. It may take a little longer, though, before their faith in human nature is restored. "Hopefully," says Kulp, "they can find a place that finds it at least abnormal that students are being set on fire."

--Reported by Ann M. Simmons/Charlotte and Lisa H. Towle/Charleston

With reporting by ANN M. SIMMONS/CHARLOTTE AND LISA H. TOWLE/CHARLESTON