VMI Will Change Honor System That Expels Black Cadets at Disproportionate Rates

Virginia Military Institute will make changes to its student-run honor court to make the system fairer to cadets accused of lying, cheating, stealing or other transgressions that can lead to expulsion.

VMI detailed the reforms in a progress report Friday in response to a state-ordered investigation into racism and sexism at the nation’s oldest state-supported military college.

The 70-page report, which the college gave to General Assembly members and the Virginia secretary of education, describes initiatives approved, enacted or begun last year, including mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion training for administrators and members of VMI’s Board of Visitors, and changes to the Lexington school’s one-strike-and-you’re-out honor court system.

Black students at VMI were expelled by the honor court at a disproportionately high rate, according to data obtained by The Washington Post for the three academic years between the fall of 2017 and the spring of 2020. Though Black cadets made up about 6 percent of the student body, they represented about 43 percent of those expelled for honor code violations. Twelve out of the 28 VMI students dismissed in those three academic years were Black. When students of color were included in the count, the number of expelled rose to 15, or about 54 percent of the total, even though minorities made up about 21 percent of the student population in that three-year period.

Barnes & Thornburg, the law firm hired by the state to investigate racism and sexism at VMI, recommended in its final report that the college “consider changing” its policy of allowing convictions without unanimous verdicts by student juries.

But VMI, which received $21.6 million in state funding for the 2021-2022 academic year, reported Friday that it will keep allowing student prosecutors to win cases with non-unanimous verdicts. The school did make one major concession: The student juries will expand in size and guilty verdicts will require nine out of 11 jury votes instead of five of seven votes.

The move, the college said in its progress report, “increases the Court’s burden of proof and further reduces the potential (real or perceived) of forcing a guilty verdict based on insufficient or circumstantial evidence.”

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The college also said it will begin retaining “key demographic data” to “monitor the fairness of the system.” {snip}

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Though there has been intense resistance from some alumni, students and parents to VMI’s cultural makeover, the progress report chronicled the college’s efforts to “temper” its links to the Confederacy.

The 182-year-old school sent many of its cadet to fight for the South during the Civil War. More than 250 cadets fought at the Battle of New Market in May 1864, and 10 were killed in battle or died later from wounds. Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson taught physics at VMI before the Civil War.

The reported noted the school’s decisions to remove many of the tributes to Jackson, including his 108-year-old statue that stood at the campus’s center, plus his name that was emblazoned on the student barracks.

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The school also detailed numerous trainings for cadets meant to crack down on racist jokes, slurs, misogyny and sexual violence.

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