[ad_1]
Virginia Democratic lawmakers are raising racially tinged concerns that the Virginia Military Institute’s board might decide against offering a comprehensive contract extension to the historic school’s first Black superintendent.
According to Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., a board member at Virginia Military Institute revealed that at least one member of the Virginia legislature had expressed concerns about the potential non-extension of Maj. Gen. Cedric Wins’ contract, and brought race into the situation.
Cline, whose district runs nearly 200 miles from Roanoke to Winchester and includes VMI, wrote a letter Tuesday to the clerks of the Virginia House of Delegates and Virginia Senate asking for an ethics probe into Sen. Jennifer Carroll-Foy.
Carroll-Foy, D-Prince William, reportedly warned a VMI Board of Visitors member of state funding repercussions unless Wins’ contract is renewed properly.
CLIMATE PROTESTERS INTERRUPT YOUNGKIN’S 9/11 SPEECH
Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va. (Getty Images)
“I am just trying to help VMI,” Carroll-Foy – also a VMI graduate – told the board member.
“Cedric is African American. The leadership of the General Assembly is African American. Your board appointments and budget amendments are in peril. You can fix this by giving Cedric a four-year contract extension,” she said.
Virginia House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, and Senate Leader L. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, are both Black.
The exchange troubled Cline, who said in his letter that “these actions, specifically the direct threats made by [Carroll-Foy] are unbecoming, inappropriate, and ethically questionable.”
“These race-related comments – totally unbecoming of a member of the General Assembly and completely inconsistent with the values of our nation – make plain the leadership in the General Assembly is attempting to exert undue influence on the decisions of the board in exchange for funding priorities of VMI,” Cline wrote in-part in the letter obtained by Fox News Digital.
A source…
[ad_2]
