The board of Virginia Military Institute voted on Friday against extending the contract of Major General Cedric T. Wins, the college’s first Black superintendent.
The school’s board of visitors, which voted 10-6 not to extend General Wins’s contract, did not give an official reason for the decision, which was made after a closed session that lasted more than two hours.
The move followed years of pushback from conservative alumni of the college who had objected to what they called General Wins’s “woke” efforts to increase campus diversity. And it followed accusations from a Virginia state senator that the effort to remove him was racially motivated.
The school is the oldest state-supported military college in the country, and all students participate in reserve officers training, a pathway to leadership roles in the U.S. military. General Wins, a V.M.I. alumnus, was appointed to the job in 2021, although he began on an interim basis the previous year. He was responsible for removing the statue of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, a Confederate general, that had been prominently positioned on campus.
He also led efforts to increase diversity on campus following reports of “relentless racism” experienced by Black cadets published by The Washington Post in 2020, shortly before he took over. A subsequent state investigation concluded that there was a racist and sexist culture at V.M.I.
When the statue was removed, General Wins acknowledged Jackson’s ties to the school, where he was an instructor, and the strong opinions about the decision. General Wins said in a statement at the time, “Though change can sometimes be difficult, it is time for our beloved Institution to move forward.”
For the past several years, even before General Wins’s contract was approaching renewal, an alumni group known as Spirit of V.M.I. had campaigned to end what it called a “woke” assault on the college, located in Lexington, Va.
State Senator Jennifer Carroll Foy, a Black V.M.I. alumna, said in an interview that the chair of the V.M.I. board of visitors, John D. Adams, an attorney and former naval officer, told her the board no longer wanted a Black superintendent. A spokesman for Mr. Adams, another V.M.I. alumnus who also voted not to extend General Wins’s contract, said Mr. Adams denies ever saying that.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, a Republican, has appointed 13 of the board’s 17 members since taking office in 2022, but Democratic state senators recently rejected two of the governor’s appointees. (One board member did not vote on Friday.)
Ms. Carroll Foy said the removal of General Wins, who served in the U.S. Army for 34 years, was particularly troubling given the Trump administration’s recent ouster of General Charles Q. Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Brown is also Black.
Virginia’s former governor, Ralph Northam, a Democrat and alumnus of the school who served in the Army, also criticized the move. “Our country has purged too many patriotic military leaders this week, and now Virginia has done it too,” he said in an emailed statement.
General Wins, whose contract is set to expire on June 30, could not immediately be reached for comment. The school also did not immediately provide comment.
