An ‘Equity Audit’ Wants the Virginia Military Institute to Renounce Its History
By Jeff Stanard
July 27, 2021 6:30 AM
What started as an effort to address allegations of racism and inequality has spiraled into a cultural assault on a venerable institution’s heritage.
In our age of cultural revisionism, can an institution with a distinctive military history at odds with prevailing progressive narratives and norms about identity reform itself without completely renouncing its heritage? The recent and ongoing assault on the Virginia Military Institute illustrates that Orwellian historical obfuscation and submission to the application of critical theory as a governing principle are the inevitable consequences of these absurd and arbitrary political imperatives. The results are anything but tolerant, equitable, or inclusive.
It would be hard to conclude otherwise from the final report the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) released last month of its investigation into the “culture, policies, practices, and traditions” of VMI following allegations of systemic racism at the school. The Roanoke Times first reported some of the allegations last June, which emerged as African-American alumni shared accounts of racism at the school over social media. Others circulated petitions to remove a statue of former VMI professor and Confederate General Stonewall Jackson from its prominent position in front of the school’s barracks, and to deemphasize other elements of the school’s distinctive heritage and symbolism. The outcry came amid the broader cultural upheaval and invigorated attention to racial injustice in America that followed the killing of George Floyd in police custody.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/07/an-equity-audit-wants-the-virginia-military-institute-to-renounce-its-history/
