First Black Superintendent At Virginia Military Institute Denied Contract Extension By Board

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Cedric T. Wins will be stepping down later this year.

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Cedric T. Wins will be stepping down in June from his position as the first-ever Black superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute. The announcement comes after the school’s board voted against extending his contract on Feb. 28 in a 10-6 vote.

The VMI’s governor-appointed Board of Visitors declined to extend Wins’ contract in a closed-session meeting after discourse surged in the week before the decision.

Wins’ position caused conflict on the VMI campus, particularly surrounding the future for Black students in attendance.
Wins is a VMI graduate with 34 years of experience serving in the Army. He was hired as superintendent just four years ago amid a slew of allegations that VMI — the U.S.’ oldest state-supported military college — was suffering from widespread racism. During his time as superintendent, Wins launched diversity, equity, and inclusion improvement efforts and bolstered the school’s application rate, but internally faced backlash from more conservative alums, parents, students, and community members who argued that his DEI initiatives were racist against white students.

He was first appointed VMI’s superintendent in November 2020, just months after George Floyd’s killing. Then, the next year, results of a state-ordered investigation were released to the public, revealing that VMI suffered from a “racist and sexist culture.”

After being hired, Wins got to work, making the carousel a safer and more inclusive place for all students. However, his reforms hit a wall of pushback after a group of white alumni launched a political action committee called the Spirit of VMI in direct opposition to his inclusive agenda. The Spirit of VMI campaigned and raised money for more conservative candidates for state office to push back on Wins.

According to The Washington Post, Black cadets at VMI believe that Wins has made the campus safer and that his initiatives have improved some of the more difficult aspects of campus life.

Besides expanding DEI programs, Wins improved VMI’s national rankings and enrollment rates following the pandemic.

As the time to vote on Wins’ contract loomed earlier this month, in a letter to the clerks of the state’s General Assembly, U.S. Rep. Ben Cline (R-Virginia) alleged that state Sen. Jennifer Carroll Foy (D-Prince William) had allegedly tried to pressure the university board to renew Wins’s contract by reportedly threatening to withhold funding for a VMI leadership and ethics center.

Cline called for state politicians to investigate Foy’s alleged actions.

Foy has denied those claims but stated that she gave advice to John Adames, the president of the VMI board, after he contacted her and stated that his fellow board members were trying to get rid of Wins.

Foy said, “He informed me that he was a supporter of the superintendent, but the board did not want to continue on with the Black superintendent. I did say, ‘You’re putting everything for VMI at risk — the reputation, all that we’re fighting for. It’s racist what you’re doing and it’s not going to go over well.’”

The VMI has over 1,500 cadets in attendance, and only 7% of the student body is Black. The college did not allow admission to Black men until 1968 and excluded women until 1997.