The oldest senior military college in the United States is currently experiencing an internal civil war because of the school’s newfound “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) policies.
The civil war has pitted two longtime friends and Virginia Military Institute (VMI) graduates against one another: current VMI superintendent Cedric T. Wins, a black man, and anti-DEI alumnus Matt Daniel, a white man and Wins’ so-called “brother rat.”
According to a report by The Washington Post, both men graduated VMI in 1985 and were close friends, and when Wins became superintendent in 2021, Daniel even wrote a congratulatory article about him for the school’s alumni magazine.
“Daniel hailed Wins as just the kind of person needed to steer the nation’s oldest state-supported military college through a tumultuous time: a state-ordered investigation into its racial climate; the resignation of the school’s longtime superintendent, and the decision to remove a century-old statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson from its hallowed perch on the Lexington campus,” the Post notes.
But the two men’s longtime comradery soon turned to dust as Wins decided to implement a DEI agenda reportedly dripping with the tenets of racial essentialism.
In response to the divisive agenda, Daniel and several other alumni launched a political action committee, the Spirit of VMI, to push back.
“Reject the woke assault on VMI,” one of the PAC’s websites reads.
The drama at VMI started in 2020 when the Post published a report claiming that black VMI cadets and alumni were experiencing “relentless racism.”
This prompted then-Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat and VMI graduate, to launch an investigation into the allegedly racist culture at the school.
This, in turn, prompted immediate anger from Daniel and his allies who felt as if “they were being attacked as racists with no proof,” according to the Post.
“The most racist thing that I have ever seen come from anybody at VMI,” Daniel told The Post in 2021, was Northam’s infamous “black face” medical school yearbook photo.
Then Wins was appointed superintendent in 2021 to fix the school’s problems. Daniel was supportive and on board at first.
“If there was ever a leader to take the helm and navigate VMI through such odd and dark, shark-infested waters, it is Cedric Wins,” Daniel wrote at the time in a column for the VMI Alumni Review.
But the good feelings soon melted away as Wins decided to go fully “woke” and embrace a DEI agenda. Now, while the Post doesn’t describe the agenda, it’s presumed based on past experience that the agenda centered on uplifting certain minorities at the expense of everybody else. Like affirmative action, basically.
“Often described broadly as a form of political correctness, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is a Marxist doctrine at the center of the malignancy of identity politics,” the Spirit of VMI explained in a blog post earlier this month.
“Akin to a pervasive cancer that seemingly overnight has metastasized across the country, DEI sows division, destruction, and discord where ever it has been allowed to fester,” the statement continues.
Wins and his allies have pushed back on the Spirit of VMI by claiming that the PAC is just trying to protect young white males.
“In my estimation, the PAC’s long-term fear is that VMI will no longer cater primarily to young white males, and white male enrollment will decline and be overshadowed by minority and female matriculation,” a close friend of Wins and also formerly of Daniel, told the Post.
“They will promote DEI and any cultural changes the superintendent fosters as critical race theory and as the boogeyman poised to destroy VMI. They will utilize conservative print and radio media to promote their fight against change and maintain themselves as victims,” he added.
The problem is DEI/CRT agendas aren’t just about white males. When implemented, they invariably lead to Asians also being discriminated against and marginalized.
The belief undergirding these divisive concepts is that black Americans have suffered the most historically and therefore must now be granted special rights, privileges, and perks to even things out.
Conservatives have argued that all this does is recreate racism, but in reverse, with black Americans sitting at the top of the pyramid while everybody else is discriminated against and marginalized.
‘I’m not playing’: Mom lawyers up against school for alleged indoctrination, suit details egregious actions https://t.co/X9ywBPd1Bu pic.twitter.com/UqVzdD0vg9
— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) December 24, 2020
Since taking over in 2021, Wins has reportedly formed a DEI committee, hired a chief diversity officer, created a so-called “cultural awareness training program,” and skyrocketed its enrollment of minorities.
“The school said that enrollment of cadets of color rose from 12.7 percent in 1992 to 23.4 percent in 2020 and that people of color make up 11 percent of full-time, tenure-track faculty members. VMI also said it is one of the highest producers of minority commissioned officers in the US military,” according to the Daily Mail.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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