Ben Cline wants an investigation into a Black state senator who he claims threatened VMI’s state funding if its Board of Visitors didn’t vote to extend the contract of the Lexington military school’s superintendent, Maj. Gen. Cedric T. Wins, who is also Black.
The state senator singled out by Cline, Jennifer Carroll Foy, a 2003 VMI alum, is clapping back, hard, at the MAGA Republican congressman.
“Not once did he call me to verify the things that he is saying,” Carroll Foy told The Times-Dispatch in an interview last week. “It shows that he has a lack of professionalism and courtesy to not call me to talk about the issue.”
It would have probably made sense for Cline to have reached out to Carroll Foy, given what he alleged in a letter that his congressional office highlighted in a press release dated Feb. 19, which detailed “disturbing actions” that the release claims “reveal a clear and troubling effort to exert undue influence over VMI’s governance.”
“The idea that members of the General Assembly would use their positions of power to intimidate VMI Board members by conditioning funding on the extension of the superintendent’s contract is not just inappropriate, it is an outright abuse of power,” Cline was quoted in the release from his office.
The release from Cline’s office claims that an unnamed VMI Board of Visitors member reported that Carroll Foy said she was “just trying to help VMI.”
“Cedric is African American. The leadership of the General Assembly is African American. Your board appointments and budget amendments are in peril. You can fix this by giving Cedric a four-year contract extension,” Cline’s office claims Carroll Foy was to have said on the matter.
“These comments,” Cline said in his office’s release, taking the unsubstantiated comments at full value, “wholly unbecoming of a member of the General Assembly and completely inconsistent with the values of our nation, make plain the leadership of the General Assembly is attempting to exert undue influence on the decisions of the Board in exchange for funding priorities of VMI.”
The letter caught fire in the right-wing media ecosystem, and the numerous news reports on Cline’s wild allegations were all predictably one-sided, telling only the anti-DEI part of the story.
Here’s the rest of the story, with perspective from Carroll Foy, who answered the Cline letter in a lengthy Twitter thread dated Feb. 22.
The thread started with Carroll Foy reporting that John Adams, the president of the VMI Board of Visitors and a partner with the Richmond law firm McGuire Woods, “called me repeatedly and informed me that the VMI Board of Visitors no longer wants a Black superintendent.”
Carroll Foy also noted in the thread the influence of the Spirit of VMI PAC and Republican donor Thomas Gottwald, a VMI alum who was appointed to the Board of Visitors by MAGA Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin in 2022.
“Members of the Spirit of VMI, a political action committee comprising alumni, parents and friends of the school, have argued that DEI is ‘unnecessary,’ promotes racial division and urge others to ‘reject the woke assault on VMI,’” Carroll Foy wrote.
“The anti-DEI rhetoric is for the expression of fear about the ‘browning’ of this country, for the disdain for the inroads that Black people are making despite the barriers that were placed before them, for the feelings that Black leaders are always inferior so they do not belong in positions of power so they must be removed,” Carroll Foy wrote, noting that the Board of Visitors had voted to approve a $100,000 bonus for Wins in 2022, which of course was met with criticism from the Spirit of VMI folks, who issued a statement in response to the bonus claiming there was “major concern among alumni and friends about VMI’s direction.”
“Everyone should be highly concerned by MAGA Republicans’ attacks on military generals who have exceptionally served this country,” Carroll Foy wrote. “Despite what is happening on the federal level, I will always defend our military members from unjust attacks.
“In Virginia, we know that our diversity is our strength. Fanning the flames of racism and racial tension is not who we are as Virginians and has no place on our boards,” Carroll Foy wrote.
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Chris Graham
