Virginia Military Institute will not renew first Black superintendent's contract

By Brad Brooks

(Reuters) - The supervisory board of the Virginia Military Institute on Friday said it would not renew the contract of the first Black superintendent of the oldest state-supported military college in the U.S.

The 16-member board, which is appointed by the governor, said in a written statement that Major General Cedric Wins, who won the position in April 2021, would serve through the end of June, when his contract expires.

The state's former Governor Ralph Northam, who led Virginia when Wins was appointed, and a state senator both sharply criticized VMI's decision.

VMI, founded in 1839 in Lexington, Virginia, has about 1,600 full-time students.

The board met in private and then announced it would not renew Wins' contract. It did not specify why his contract would not be renewed.

A request for comment sent to Wins' office was not immediately returned.

Wins, who graduated from VMI in 1985, was appointed amid a state-ordered investigation that found the institution had long harbored a racist and sexist culture.

Wins sought to combat that during his tenure, rolling out diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that roiled a group of conservative alumni who have clamored for his removal.

Among Wins' actions was overseeing the removal from campus of a statue of Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, a Confederate general during the American Civil War and former instructor at the school.

Northam, a Democrat who led the state when Wins was appointed to lead VMI, said in a written statement that "our country has purged too many patriotic leaders this week, and now Virginia has done it too."

Northam referred to President Donald Trump's firing of several top military leaders, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, the second Black man to hold that position. Since taking office, Trump has sought to eliminate DEI policies at all levels of government.

Virginia state Senator Jennifer Carroll Foy, a Black alumnus of VMI, also criticized the decision not to renew Wins' contract, saying in a written statement that "hyper-partisan MAGA Republican appointees" of the board made the decision after "falsely labeling him as a 'DEI hire.'"

The supervisory board declined to respond to a request for comment about Carroll Foy's criticism.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado; Editing by David Gregorio)