Update: 

Superintendent J. H. Binford Peay III of the Virginia Military Institute resigned his position Monday, days after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and the party’s leading lawmakers announced a probe into pervasive and unpunished racism at the military college. In his resignation letter, Peay said it has been “the honor of my life” to serve as superintendent for more than 17 years. John W. Boland, the president of the VMI Board of Visitors, wrote in a statement that he accepted Peay’s resignation “with deep regret.”

Original:

Chris Ferrill says he was at a track workout in his first month at the Virginia Military Institute, lying on his back and doing flutter kicks. The sun beat down and the teenage football player pulled down his hat to shield his face. Ferrill says a fellow student who was tasked with discipline approached him, saying, “take your hat off, you’re not in the hood anymore.”

“Mind you, I live in Northern Virginia,” Ferrill recalled. “I’m nowhere near the hood, but just based off, I guess, my skin color I was perceived to be from the hood, even though that person didn’t know me.”

Quickly, Ferrill, 21, says, he noticed a pattern of singling him and other Black cadets, or students, out for discipline. His grades tumbled. Twice, he was subject to disciplinary trials. He left after two years, and said a central reason for his departure was racism. On Monday, Gov. Ralph Northam (D), himself an alumnus, announced an investigation of VMI over what appeared to be a pattern of discrimination.

“This culture is unacceptable for any Virginia institution in the 21st century, especially one funded by taxpayers,” wrote Gov. Northam, in a letter signed by Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, Attorney General Mark Herring, House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas and other prominent Virginia lawmakers, all Democrats.

The investigation began after Black cadets and alumni told The Washington Post they experienced racism from their peers as well as faculty. One student said a a professor reminisced about her family’s KKK history. Another student said he was threatened with lynching. The statue of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson,  which students walk by daily, still stands on the Institute’s grounds. Some students said they were punished for boycotting a September speech by Vice President Mike Pence. This article followed earlier reports on racism by The Roanoke Times.

The Lexington-based VMI was founded in 1839 and is the oldest state-funded military college in the country. All students must participate in a Reserve Officers Training Corps unit in order to graduate, although they are not obligated to serve in the military.

VMI spokesperson Bill Wyatt declined to comment on the specific allegations and said federal law prohibited him from discussing disciplinary matters. However, in an email Wyatt wrote that the Institute hosted leaders including Hillary Clinton, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Lewis, and that “Cadet attendance is an important part in their leadership formation and teaches respect, civility, and discourse.”

Wyatt said 7% of VMI’s cadets are Black and 23% are non-white. By comparison, he noted that the University of Virginia’s student population is about 7% Black or African American and that Black students comprised 4% of the Virginia Tech student body.

John William Boland, the president of the VMI Board of Visitors and a graduate of the institute, pushed back against Northam’s claims in a letter to the governor.

“Virtually all colleges in the 50 states can point to inappropriate behavior by their students or faculty members. VMI is not immune. However, systemic racism does not exist here and a fair and independent review will find that to be true,” wrote Boland.

Boland added that he would cooperate with investigators and said administrators have begun a review of the Institute’s traditions, culture and relationship between cadets and alumni. He wrote that the incidents reported “had more to do with an individual’s lapse of judgment” than systemic racism and that “appropriate action was meted out in a timely fashion.”

Ferrill said that rang false in his case. He said all three of his roommates, who were also African American athletes, left as well.

“Every single one of us who have left have a story about someone doing something to us and them not receiving a punishment,” he said.

Ferrill said he transferred to North Carolina A&T in Greensboro, where he is studying information technology and saw his GPA jump to just below honors.

“I have a 3.49 GPA. At VMI I sat at 2.6,” he said. “This past semester I got a 4.0. Being in this environment I almost knew that I would excel having those stressors off me.”

Other alumni remembered on Twitter their own experiences with racist namecalling, blackface Halloween costumes and campus rituals that valorized Confederate soldiers.

Stephen Graham, 22, told DCist/WAMU a female classmate of his was called the N-word but the offending cadet was not punished. Graham left VMI after one semester and is now studying business administration at North Carolina Central University in Durham.

“I hope action is taken,” Graham said. “People are still going through it today.”

Democratic Virginia lawmakers are encouraging Northam’s push for answers, including Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy (D-Prince William), who graduated from VMI in 2003.

“As a Virginia Military Institute graduate and one of the first Black women to attend the institution, it’s disheartening to know that our academic leaders are uncomfortable acknowledging the presence of systemic racism within the institution,” she wrote in a statement. “The experiences that Black students continue to face at VMI — some of which I, myself, experienced — are egregious.”

Carroll Foy is running for governor and said if elected she would ensure that her alma mater would take the lead toward creating a welcoming environment.

Del. Dan Helmer (D-Fairfax) said VMI had blind spots on inclusion that extended beyond race. He said he encountered resistance from VMI when he proposed a bill that would grant immunity for consumption of drugs or alcohol to people making a “good faith report” of sexual violence. The bill eventually passed but with an exemption for the VMI. Helmer, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the allegations of racism on campus are “not surprising.”

“My interactions left me fairly clear that cultural change was needed from the top down,” he said.

Del. Don Scott (D-Portsmouth) tweeted, “It’s hard to believe that in 2020 all of our tax dollars are still supporting this overtly racist culture at a state supported school.”

Northam graduated VMI in 1981.  He resisted calls to step down last year when photographs surfaced from his medical school yearbook page depicting a man in blackface and another in a KKK hood. Since then, he made racial justice a focus of his administration.

He wrote the review of VMI’s culture and practices would be run by a non-partisan national organization that would be tasked with delivering preliminary results by the end of the year. This would allow for possible action in the upcoming General Assembly session that begins in January 2021. Northam said he would propose adding funding for the review to the state budget and suggested in his note that future funding of VMI could hinge on improving its culture.

“We are committed to the sustainability of the Virginia Military Institute and its mission of educating citizen soldiers, but the future will look much different from the past,” he said.