The VMI Board of Visitors, under the thumb of MAGA Gov. Glenn Youngkin, voted on Friday to not extend the contract of Maj. Gen. Cedric T. Wins, the school’s first Black superintendent.
The move was expected, with Youngkin, elected in 2021, having made his efforts to end DEI – which MAGAs like our governor have made the new n-word – a centerpiece of his political and personal legacy.
Earlier this week, Youngkin used the emergency-appointment process to install two new members on the VMI Board of Visitors, 1984 VMI alum Stephen G. Reardon of Richmond, an attorney with Spotts Fain and a small-potatoes Republican donor, and Jonathan Hartsock, a 2000 alum of VMI, who served as the school’s deputy commandant before joining the office staff of Sixth District MAGA Congressman Ben Cline in the summer of 2023.
Both voted with the 10-6 majority against the extension of Wins’s contract.
The use of the emergency-appointment process suggests there was a hurry up and fire the Black guy element to the Board of Visitors vote.
That one of the appointments is a Ben Cline stooge is evidence of the wider political conspiracy at play here.
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Cline, in a Feb. 18 letter to General Assembly leaders, pressed the launch of an ethics investigation into State Sen. Jennifer Carroll Foy, a Black woman and 2003 VMI alum, after Cline claimed that Carroll Foy pressured an unnamed VMI Board member to give Wins a four-year contract extension because he is Black, an outrageous assertion that she has vigorously denied.
“Maj. Gen. Wins took over as superintendent of VMI during a pandemic crisis and quickly turned challenges into measurable wins – increasing state funding by 7 percent, reversing declining applications, driving major capital improvements, and boosting athletic and academic performance,” Carroll Foy said in a statement released after the VMI Board of Visitors vote.
“Now, hyper-partisan MAGA Republican appointees have taken over the VMI Board with their political agendas and voted to end the superintendent’s contract by falsely labeling him as a ‘DEI hire.’ The core issue is that this action had nothing to do with performance or merit,” Carroll Foy said.
Wins has been under constant fire from White MAGA VMI alums because, one, he’s Black – duh! – and two, because he was hired in 2020 amidst a controversy sparked by reporting from The Washington Post about “a lynching threat and other anecdotes from Black students alleging bigotry on the campus in Lexington.”
A month into Wins’s tenure, the school removed a statue honoring Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson, and following the release in 2021 of a state-commissioned report that detailed the “racist and sexist culture” at the school, Wins oversaw the introduction of a DEI program at VMI, and initiated a review of the school’s numerous tributes to the Confederacy.
“These are dark times,” said former governor Ralph Northam, a 1981 VMI alum who, as governor, was the one who commissioned the state report in the culture at his alma mater that was the impetus to the reforms initiated under Wins’s watch.
“Maj. Gen. Wins is an accomplished leader who has given his life to serving our country, the Armed Forces and Virginia Military Institute. His steady leadership has made our Commonwealth stronger,” Northam said.
“VMI needs to take a hard look and ask, How long will we cling to the past?” Northam said. “If the Institute wants to survive, it needs to start looking to the future. Time is running out.”
Indeed, it might seem, from the outside looking in, that the White MAGAs in charge down there want state taxpayers to continue to foot the bill for VMI to be what it used to be before it was forced to admit Blacks and women.
To that point on money, more than a quarter of VMI’s operating budget comes from state taxpayer funds.
One suggestion to the MAGAs who want to enhance the tradition of racism and sexism on their sacred post would be, raise the money to take the school private.
I’m not alone in thinking this out loud.
“The Board’s decision is a clear signal that VMI is choosing to move in the wrong direction, caving to political pressures rather than continuing on the path to necessary reform,” said House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott, a Black lawyer.
“This is deeply disappointing, and it is time for a serious conversation about VMI’s commitment to progress and the Commonwealth,” Scott said.
Nothing ominous there from the House Speaker.
Of note on this point from the Speaker: State Sen. Louise Lucas quote-tweeted Scott’s statement with the line “FAFO.”
Lucas, it might be worth pointing out, is the chair of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee.
Quick story to tell on Louise Lucas: remember how Youngkin wanted his legacy to be bringing the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals to Northern Virginia with state money?
The why that didn’t happen part to the story is, as he was trying to broker a deal with Democrats in the General Assembly to get millions in state dollars to go toward construction, he gave a speech at Washington & Lee, next door, as it turns out, to VMI, in which he claimed that “today’s progressive Democratic Party does not believe in nor do they want a strong America, an America with no rivals,” and that Democrats “are content to concede, to compromise away, to abandon the very foundations that have made America exceptional.”
Lucas was the one who made sure Youngkin had to eat his words.
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“This is the speech he gives while wanting us to compromise with him and give him the Glenn Dome?” she said after Youngkin’s offered his remarks.
“As long as the full faith and credit of the Commonwealth is backing this project, my answer continues to be an absolute no,” Lucas said.
FAFO.
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Chris Graham
