VMI cadets walking to class outside of the Old Barracks. Photo courtesy of VMI Communications & Marketing
In an interim report, investigators looking into reported racist incidents at Virginia Military Institute say some alumni and current cadets have reported hearing racial slurs “on a regular basis” at the state-funded military college in Lexington.
The Washington, D.C.-based law firm Barnes & Thornburg LLP, which submitted the report Monday to Peter A. Blake, director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, continues its audit of VMI, which it started Jan. 7, interviewing cadets, alumni, faculty and staff.
The report details several uses of racial slurs, including an account from one Black alumnus who reported being called the n-word “many times” between 2018 and 2021, and a white graduate who attended the school in the late 1990s saying that racial slurs were “common” and “absolutely a part of life in the barracks.” An Asian graduate who attended the school in the mid-1990s said he was “routinely” called “sand n-word” by an upperclassman. Also, according to internal reports at VMI provided to the investigators, there were 13 substantiated allegations of use of racial slurs between 2015 and 2021.
