Funding for the Virginia Military Institute is threatened by legislative action
Measures taken before the Virginia Legislaturein response to allegations of systemic racism at the institution, could not only strip the nation’s oldest state-run military college of its independence, but also cut off the funding it needs to exist.
Last week, the War Department, Undersecretary Pete Hegsethtook to social media to support VMI, writing that “the stability of our proven line of command is a matter of direct national security interest” and that the department “reserves the right to take extraordinary measures to protect the integrity of VMI.”
VMI students oppose the investigations proposed by Virginia Democrats, warning that the legislation could deprive the college of funding and threaten the survival of the historic military college. (Courtesy of VMI)
After spending some time this week at… Lexington, Virginia, As the mountainous home of VMI, it’s clear that the college is not only a national treasure, but a local treasure as well.
“VMI is the beating heart of Lexington,” Melinda, an educator who has lived in the city for decades, told me. “I can’t imagine the place without her.”
I met John, who graduated from VMI in the early 2000s and who said of the supposed racism and sexism, “People who hate VMI only hate VMI because they think it represents the Confederacy.” He insisted that these claims were exaggerated because every student lived by the same code of conduct.
Even a group of anti-presidents Donald Trump The protesters I encountered on a cold Friday afternoon had few glowing things to say about VMI.
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“We were disappointed by the dismissal of the superintendent,” Annette told me, referring to Major General Cedric Wiens, the school’s first black president, who was fired last year. “But we all love VMI.”
Republican lawmakers are blaming Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger and renewing DEI efforts in what they call an ideological push that could jeopardize the nation’s oldest state-supported military college. (Getty Images)
So, if everyone in Lexington thought the Virginia Military Institute was great, and if it had provided America with great military leadership, than General George S. Patton to General George C. Marshall, why is he about to get chopped up?
Because insatiable Appetite for the destruction of wokiism.
VMI is integrally connected to the history of the Confederacy. Its most famous trainer was Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, whose horse one can visit is preserved in the college museum. But over the course of the twentieth century, the school has figured this out, and often gone to great lengths to do so.
Take, for example, the historical marker of Benjamin West Kleindienst’s epic painting “The Responsibility of New Market Students.”
“Although the ‘New Market Student Charge’ was completed during a period of American history when”“Lost cause” “The ideology was widespread in Virginia, and today the plaque serves the VMI community neither as a commemoration of a Confederate victory nor as a veneration of the Confederacy.”
This is what political correctness looks like, sheepishly apologizing for your own culture when no one asks you to. But mindfulness is different. Vigilance cannot tolerate having ties to an evil past.
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Even my hotel, which bore Robert E. Lee’s name for nearly a century, has a new name. The only reference to Lee on the left is a plaque indicating that the elevator is an original Otis installed in 1926.
The erasure of history lurks around every corner and is coming now for VMI.
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He was a Union Army artillery commander who, over his personal objection, bombarded and destroyed much of VMI in 1864. Delaware man His name is Henry A. du Pont, who in 1914, as a U.S. Senator, passed legislation to compensate the school for the damages he had caused.
These are the kinds of stories that resonate in the halls of the institute, tales of imperfect men from an imperfect nation, working toward greater perfection. If you chill out on campus on a cold, quiet winter day, you can hear them.
Last week, he drafted VMI’s Class of 2001 Open letter To Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger, published in the Lexington News-Journal. There are two things worth noting about this class: it was the first class to include women, and it graduated in the war.
“We integrated women into the Corps when the nation doubted that it could be done,” the letter said. “We have produced citizen soldiers of every race and background, who trained, served, and bled together. We didn’t prove it through symbolism. We proved it in Fallujah, Kandahar, Korengal, and at military funerals throughout the commonwealth.”
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With Democrats clearly in control of political power in Virginia, Threat to VMI funding And the future is very real, which is why it is so important that Hegseth and the War Office make it clear that they are a support to keep this special place going.
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A nation and a people are their history, and few institutions have as much of it as VMI. A city and a community are its institutions, its old and famous places, and in Lexington, that is VMI.
Long may the Virginia Military Institute and its traditions endure.
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