Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors
ATTN: Mr. John Adams, President
Virginia Military Institute
Lexington, Virginia 24450
Dear Mr. Adams and Members of the VMI Board of Visitors (BOV);
I am writing to request an update on actions the Board of Visitors (BOV) is taking to resolve the suppression of The Cadet newspaper and ensure the cadets immediately receive approval of the “permit” they submitted to the administration.
As an alumnus I subscribe to The Cadet. I have found it to be objective, balanced and extremely well written. Indeed, the quality, balance and objectivity of journalism in The Cadet is better than in papers like the New York Times, Washington Post and the Richmond Times Dispatch. The Cadet’s many awards for journalism, including its recent national awards, support this conclusion.
While the Institute’s very name connotes military discipline, command and control, my experience in military command in both training and combat taught me that encouraging free, open, and honest communications between the ranks and the leadership was very beneficial to morale, proficiency and teamwork, for it built trust through all the ranks up and down the line.
For not approving the cadet permit without requiring concessions of their first amendment and other rights, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Student Press Law Center (SPLC), Alumni Free Speech Alliance (AFSA) and others have warned VMI and the Board that they are not encouraging freedom of speech but repressing it.
Consequently, from both the perspectives of educating young minds and developing military leadership and discipline, the refusal of the Superintendent to approve the permit the cadets submitted for the independent operation of The Cadet makes no sense except for the very negative purpose of attempting to control a narrative. The Board’s lack of action to support these cadets culpably condones this repression (which is very different from good discipline).
Given that, it is incomprehensible to me that the Board of Visitors would not even allow the issue to be brought up at the last board meeting. I am informed that neither you, the Board, or the Superintendent have yet to engage with The Cadet Foundation on this issue, but instead, the administration continues to summon cadet members of the staff before the Dean, the Commandant’s office representatives and other administrators without proper representation. This continues the climate of pressure FIRE, SPLC and others warned the Institute against.
Evidence submitted to the Board in the public record details how the Secretary to the Board (Executive Officer to the Superintendent) provided false and/or misleading information to discredit The Cadet newspaper, its staff, and others after The Cadet published articles on issues the Institute sought to suppress. The Superintendent stated these actions, and all others were done with his full support.
In the June Board meeting the Superintendent stated “…there’s things with respect to the Cadet Foundation that would have to be in my words, fire-walled.” The Superintendent, working with the VMI Alumni Agencies, appears to be trying to force all funding for The Cadet to pass through the Agencies to the Institute, to be controlled by the administration, forcing cadets to request approval to spend their own monies.
Until the Institute approves the permit as submitted by Cadets, I can no longer donate to or support the Institute. My contributions may be small, but I will encourage any alumni and others I encounter to act similarly. The Alumni Agencies and Superintendent have claimed such actions “hurt cadets”. They do not. This repression of free speech, as well as the increasingly deplorable conditions in barracks, the degradation of the Corps system and the Ratline, the erosion of the power of the Corps to govern itself at the hands of the administration hurts cadets and that hurt is being enabled by the Board refusing to act.
The impression I get of the Institute’s administration is that it has become focused on control – a satisfaction of egos – at the expense of effective leadership and management and the only conclusion members of the VMI community can draw is the Board is either unwilling or incapable of executing the basic statutory governance needed to properly support VMI’s historic mission, much less guarantee a small independent student newspaper the basic functions required to operate. Indeed, one of your members, James Inman ’86, working for General Peay, was instrumental in shutting down The Cadet in 2019. Given the Board’s apparent failures on this simple issue, all members of the VMI Family as well as Virginia Taxpayers should have serious doubt that we can trust the Institute or the Board to handle the myriad problems facing VMI in other areas.
I respectfully await your reply.
Sincerely,
Edgar Doleman, ’61