The Wall Street Journal: "Virginia Democrats Attack VMI"

Editor's note: The following editorial, reprinted with permission of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), is not an OPED or article by an individual but published on behalf of the Editorial Board and so represents the official position of The Wall Street Journal regarding the Virginia Military Institute and the subjects covered. The progressive campaign to dominate academia endures, and the latest project is on display in Virginia. State lawmakers are pushing bills to wrest control of the Virginia Military Institute from its alumni and put its state funding at risk. Virginia House bill 1377 creates a task force to decide if the military college "should continue to be a state-sponsored institution of higher education." The task force will "determine whether educational services rendered by VMI are duplicated at other institutions of higher education in the Commonwealth" and "evaluate the relative cost to the Commonwealth and taxpayers." Don't think this is about saving money. It's about progressive hostility to VMI's martial values. As part of its review, the new panel (made up of 11 delegates, two of whom served in the military) would "thoroughly audit" whether the school has made "substantial changes" to reduce "racist, sexist or misogynistic" actions in the student body and whether the school "possesses the capacity . . . to end celebration of the Confederacy." Possesses the capacity? The outcome seems preordained. A companion bill, HB 1374, would change the makeup of the VMI Board of Visitors to reduce the number of alumni to eight from 12 on the 16 member Governor-appointed Board. The goal is to dilute the inﬂuence of alumni with aﬀection for the school's traditions. An earlier draft sought to dissolve the board and put VMI under the oversight of Virginia State University. That would have all but erased VMI as an independent institution. The revisions are intended to achieve the same goal but soften the political blowback. The moves are partly intended as payback for the school's 2025 termination of former superintendent Cedric Wins. VMI hired the retired major general in 2020 after a state investigation into racism at the school amid the Biden Administration's DEI push. Mr. Wins expanded the school's diversity initiatives and removed a statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson from campus, but his tenure was marked by declining enrollment. When VMI declined to renew his contract in February 2025, the New York Times wrote that VMI's "ﬁrst black leader" had been "ousted." With Gov. Abigail Spanberger's election, Virginia Democrats see a chance to get even. In a letter to President Trump, a group of retired senior military oﬃcers called Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services says changes imposed on VMI's role in educating commissioned oﬃcers aﬀects federal military readiness and "commissioning pipelines" established under Title 10 of the U.S. Code. The Virginia General Assembly's "actions are a direct challenge to the authority of the Department of War and POTUS" and "to the military readiness of the United States itself," the group writes. During former Gov. Glenn Youngkin's tenure, Virginia Democrats engaged in unprecedented obstruction by blocking appointees to state university boards, so the spots could be ﬁlled by Ms. Spanberger. The attack on VMI is part of a progressive makeover. Don't expect the press to devote the same critical attention to this as it gives to the Trump Administration's university demands. The Editorial Board speaks for free markets and free people, the principles, if you will, marked in the watershed year of 1776 by Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence and Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations." So over the past century and into the next, the Journal stands for free trade and sound money; against confiscatory taxation and the ukases of kings and other collectivists; and for individual autonomy against dictators, bullies and even the tempers of momentary majorities. The original editorial appeared in the February 27, 2026, print edition as 'Virginia Democrats Attack VMI' and can be accessed in the online version of this article at www.cadetnewspaper.com. Please consider supporting The Cadet through a donation at: www.thecdetfoundation.org. The cadet remains independent of both VMI and its Alumni Agencies. All funds go to support our programs governed by a Board of ONLY cadets and alumni.