In response to lawsuit, VMI alumni association says it didn’t violate alumni civil rights

The Virginia Military Institute’s alumni association says a group of alumni has no grounds for a lawsuit it has filed against the organization, and has asked for the case to be dismissed.

A federal civil rights suit filed in June by 29 plaintiffs claimed that the institute — a state-run military college in Lexington — and the VMI Alumni Association are so intertwined that VMI essentially controls the alumni association. The alumni argued that their First and 14th amendment rights were violated, and that the suspension of several alumni from the association earlier this year was retaliation for efforts to reform leadership of the association through voting.

The alumni association’s response, filed July 23, defends its status as a private entity. Since the association is not a public forum, it argues, it hasn’t stymied members’ right to free speech.

In addition, the association argues that the constitutional rights of alumni to vote apply only to voting for public office, not for leadership of a private organization. The response also explains that member voting rights within the association apply only to the election or removal of directors and not, as the plaintiffs argue, to other organizational matters.

The alumni complaint traced much of the relationship between VMI and its alumni organizations to a 2019 action that moved four alumni corporations, including the association, under the umbrella of VMI Alumni Agencies. The suit claims that the restructuring took place without approval of the alumni association members.

The association suspended seven of the plaintiffs in January for their ties to the use of scraping technology to obtain member email addresses in bulk. An eighth suspended member is not a plaintiff. The association’s response to the lawsuit claims that those suspended members were given opportunities to deny the accusations or appeal their suspensions.

The association’s response states that the entity acted appropriately in changing its articles of incorporation. It’s also past the commonwealth’s 30-day time limit to raise opposition to state business filings, the response notes.

The response takes issue with the alumni complaint that VMI and its alumni association were “pervasively intertwined,” and says that the plaintiffs are trying to “create the appearance they have federal civil rights claims.” The association argues that those claims are “unsupported and speculative.”

The association also calls the plaintiffs’ request that the court supervise a completely new election of association directors by alumni membership “draconian,” and that their request is an attempted “corporate takeover” of the association and the funds it holds.

“My clients have alleged sufficient facts to support their claims” that VMI and the alumni association acted together to give VMI more control over the “nominally private” alumni association and its endowment, Paul Curley, the VMI alumnus who is representing the plaintiffs, said by email Tuesday.

He maintains that the plaintiffs are all alumni association members “with voting rights that have been infringed,” and that the association and VMI acted together to “silence those members of the VMI alumni who dare to speak out against the direction of the VMIAA and/or VMI and their unlawful actions.”

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