Wins Departs VMI
And now some say it's all politcal?
VMI’s Board of Visitors declined on Friday to renew retired Army Maj. Gen. Cedric Wins’ contract as superintendent and the situation doesn’t greatly differ from 2008 when the governing board at the College of William & Mary did likewise with Gene R. Nichol.
There was a stiff reaction to Nichol’s dismissal; there will be stiff reaction this time.
Some will recall that Nichol did not take it well and insisted that it was a fight over ideology. He’d been a victim of a “committed, relentless, frequently untruthful, and vicious campaign.”
Nichol then immediately made for the exit door and never returned.
In truth, the W&M Board of Visitors and Nichol were at odds and something was bound to give. W. Taylor Reveley III, then-dean of the law school, stepped into the gap and did so splendidly.
We’ll see what happens with VMI. As with W&M, many and varied voices will likely speak out.
In this instance, however, some may well emanate from Washington, D.C.
Just a couple of quick points on all this:
Virginia’s approach to higher education governance developed over the 20th century. Any number of times, Virginia was encouraged (either by a commission or consultants) to centralize decision-making under a “chancellor” or a “super-board.” Virginia instead left authority with the appointed governing boards of each state-owned college and university.
That choice vested the different campuses with a high measure of autonomy. It allowed the schools to seek their own future.
It’s a good system that could always stand to be improved. The board members themselves – the people named to sit in these chairs -- have to be up to it. Their character, knowledge, experience, etc. all contribute to and mold the quality of institutional outcomes.
Meanwhile, everyone else – literally meaning all other souls with an opinion, but not enjoying board membership -- needs to understand where the lines of authority are drawn.
When it comes to a given institution’s leadership and the length of their tenure – as either president, superintendent or grand fromage -- the determining role of the governor and elected lawmakers is analogous to the role they play in hiring the school’s leadership in the first place.
In other words, the governor and the legislators have no role whatsoever. Zippo.
When you get elected to state office, either as an executive or legislator, no one is asking you to run the state’s colleges and universities. That is not your job.
Does that stop the politicians from wanting to jump in? Of course not and it would be odd for them to not have an interest in what’s going on. So running about backstairs, initiating covert action, creating pressure of one sort or another, is hardly unknown.
Exactly that sort of thing has been happening in recent weeks with VMI.
The danger? If you go too far with that – if you allow politicians to muck about, to even issue threats -- you end up with a politicized mess and risk serious institutional damage. That’s happened over and over again with other schools in other states and occasionally it threatens Virginia.
Leadership choices are never easy during stressed circumstances and VMI’s broader community’s engagement in the school’s welfare has never been, well, shrinking. Not a shy bunch at all.
In Lexington, the issue is not really Gen. Wins. I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t personally like Gen. Wins. Within the Army, he was a broadly admired flag officer.
But so was Wins’ four-star predecessor, J. H. Binford Peay III.
A decorated veteran of two tours in Vietnam, Peay rose to the highest rank in the U.S Army and served both as Vice-Chief of Staff and head of Central Command.
Remember the New York City ticker-tape parade following Desert Storm and the proud appearance of the 101st Airborne Division? The commanding officer marching out in front? That was Peay.
It was, in fact, a happy surprise to see Peay find his way back to his alma mater to serve as superintendent. A military leader of his stature has many options.
It worked out brilliantly, however. Peay appeared with plan in hand and it brought VMI forward. The school reached, by many accounts, its highest level of performance ever.
Then 2020 rolled around. Published reports fueled worry over racial disquiet and a state political leadership composed entirely of Democrats – a leadership then enjoying the vinous effects of peak progressivism -- launched a full-blown political attack on VMI.
Near his second retirement, pressed to resign by Gov. Ralph Northam, Peay finally said, OK, and tipped his hat.
Then came the infamous, unprecedented “investigation.”
No Virginia school has ever been scrutinized in this manner and you pray it never happens again. The report subsequently generated reads like a political manifesto and it reads that way because it is.
That was the whole point. The grand scheme was to anchor VMI in diversity, equity and inclusion dogma. The edicts, the rules, the decrees, you name it – the entire bureaucratic apparatus was meant to get VMI to politically conform.
In 2020, the powers in Richmond were happy to do this. They were proud of themselves. DEI was the future.
Now it’s 2025 and the consternation over DEI has dramatically shifted public opinion. Some still believe; in seemingly increasing numbers, some do not.
Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, says that VMI’s decision on Wins “is purely political.”
Good grief. It’s been political from the get-go. Getting it to stop being political is the real challenge that faces Virginia.