VMI board opted out of extending first Black superintendent’s contract

The Associated Press
March 1, 2025, 10:18 AM

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Retired Army Maj. Gen. Cedric T. Wins will step down in June from his post as the first Black superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute after the school’s board voted against extending his contract Friday.

In a 10-6 vote, the school’s Board of Visitors, an advisory group appointed by the governor, opted out of extending Wins’ contract after meeting in a closed session shielded from the public.

The ouster of Wins, a 1985 alumnus who served more than three decades in the Army, comes in the wake of increased diversity efforts at the school in recent years after a damning report from the state — but also pushback against those efforts by some conservative alumni.

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Chatter about the future of Wins’ contract at the college has escalated in recent weeks, with Democratic Sen. Jennifer Carroll Foy, a VMI alumna, saying she was told the board no longer wanted a Black superintendent. Following that, Republican U.S. Rep. Ben Cline wrote a letter to the Virginia General Assembly clerks accusing Carroll Foy of intimidating “VMI Board members by conditioning funding on the extension of the superintendent’s contract.” On social media, the state senator called Cline’s letter “misinformation” and a “barrage of attacks.”

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This story was corrected to include the first name of VMI’s former chief diversity officer, Jamica Love.

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