(Headline USA) A group of Virginia Military Institute alumni is encouraging recruits to stand up to the school’s embrace of woke ideology, according to reports.
The well-funded alumni have blasted VMI’s superintendent, retired Army Maj. Gen. Cedric Wins, who laid out a five-goal diversity, equity and inclusion agenda shortly after taking help of the school in October 2020. Wins claimed the program’s mission is to “achieve and maintain a more diverse and inclusive student body, faculty, staff and administration.”
In response, several alumni founded a political action committee dubbed “Spirit of VMI” to fight Wins’ woke agenda. The group’s website encourages current VMI students to “reject the woke assault” on the school and “close ranks.”
DEI’s “purpose is to cow Americans into agreeing with the fundamental premise that white people are inherently and irredeemably racist,” the PAC wrote in a recent blog post. “Many of the people appointed in DEI departments act like gangsters, employing the Cancel Culture tactics of fear and intimidation to control their minions.”
The Spirit of VMI has also run ads in the school’s student newspaper, including QR codes for conservative videos by PragerU that blast DEI as an anti-white crusade.
Carmen D. Villani Jr., another VMI alumnus apart of the PAC, encouraged those concerned about the school’s leftward lurch to ask the Virginia state legislature to “look very seriously” at the school’s funding proposal.
The Spirit of VMI has raised more than $273,000 already, according to the Washington Post.
Wins responded by claiming the former Marine behind the group, Matt Daniel, was “looking desperate and racist.” He also claimed Villani has “no understanding of DEI or what it means.”
“You advised the listeners to urge the members of the General Assembly to ‘look very seriously’ at VMI’s funding request, a request you have no understanding about. VMI’s funding request will pale in comparison to that of the other public colleges in the state,” Wins said to Villani.
