Friday, March 29, 2024

Virginia Military Institute Superintendent Resigns Amid Reports of ‘Relentless Racism’ Suffered by Black Cadets (Watch)

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Army Gen. J.H. Binford Peay III

*The superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute, retired Army Gen. J.H. Binford Peay III, resigned Monday following reports of ongoing systemic racism at the military college.

The 80-year-old stepped down days after the Washington Post documented “relentless racism” suffered by the Black cadets at the state-sponsored school. The retired four-star general wrote in a public resignation letter that Gov. Ralph Northam and other state politicians had “lost confidence in my leadership” and “desired my resignation.”

One 2019 graduate, Keniya Lee, told the Post that a professor “reminisced” about her father’s membership in the Ku Klux Klan. Another Black student claimed a white classmate told him he was going to “lynch” him and use his “dead corpse as a punching bag.”

At the time, Peay said any allegation of racism or discrimination would be “investigated and appropriately punished, if substantiated.”

Northam, who graduated from VMI in 1981, launched a formal investigation and third-party review in an order signed by Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, Attorney General Mark Herring and the chair of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus.

Peay’s letter said that VMI cadets “continue to be educated in a physical environment that honors the Confederacy and celebrates an inaccurate and dangerous ‘Lost Cause’ version of Virginia’s history. It is long past time to consign these relics to the dustbin of history.”

Watch a report on the investigation of VMI’s systemic racism from WSLS 10 below:

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