VMI Administration Attempts To Choke Off Freedom of Speech

Mr. John Adams, President
Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors
Virginia Military Institute
201 Smith Hall
Lexington, Virginia 24450

September 20, 2024

Dear Mr. Adams:

I am the President of The Jefferson Council for the University of Virginia
( https://www.jeffersoncouncil.org/ ) as well as the Chair of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance
( https://www.alumnifreespeechalliance.org/ ). TJC’s core mission is to “Preserve Thomas Jefferson’s Legacy of Freedom and Excellence” while fighting for a return to a culture of civil dialogue, intellectual diversity, and the free exchange of competing ideas at UVA. AFSA is a 501©3 comprised of 27 like-minded alternative alumni groups pursuing the same goals at their alma maters.

In my role as AFSA Chair, I have been in close contact with VMI’s AFSA group The Cadet Foundation since its inception. Therefore, I am conversant with the events on the VMI campus and the issues TCF is confronting. I am writing you since I just became aware of the request from the staff of The Cadet to obtain their permit. These exemplary cadets have won numerous Virginia Press Association (VPA) awards, including being the only student newspaper in its history to win the VPA’s highest award for Journalistic Integrity and Community Service. I also know that The Cadet recently won multiple national awards competing against professional journalists across the country. They are an outstanding group of young men and women and should be a source of pride for everyone affiliated with VMI.

Over the past few months, I have been concerned about the serious First Amendment, ethical, and legal issues concerning the actions taken by the VMI administration against The Cadet and its cadet staff. This included, without limitation, a petition signed by over 2,570 people around the world. I understand that the administration’s position is they will not approve a simple permit requested by the cadets on the paper’s staff. They are asking that after occasional late-night deadlines, you allow cadets to sleep in and miss breakfast, distribute their papers, and travel off-VMI to work on their paper. These are innocuous and completely reasonable requests. You will not allow this unless they relinquish complete financial and other operating controls to the administration.

Your position is absurd. I will provide you with a direct analogy. The UVA student-run papers – The Cavalier Daily and The Jefferson Independent – are autonomous from the administration. The CD is a mostly liberal paper that obtains direct funding from UVA, but the administration leaves them alone. TJI is a rather new independent conservative paper and is independently funded by outside sources. Like their position regarding the CD, the administration leaves them alone. Under what interpretation of the First Amendment or Virginia law does the VMI administration deem it appropriate to dictate to The Cadet how they operate or from whom they obtain financial support?

I am aware that despite these concerns, including formal “Warning Letters” from The Student Press Law Center (SPLC) and Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), you refused to even take up the issue of The Cadet and freedom of speech at VMI during this week’s September 16 – 18 Board of Visitor’s meeting. The Cadet is officially recognized by a unanimous vote of the Virginia General Assembly and Governor Youngkin. Despite this, you will not even allow a discussion of these matters publicly at the BOV meeting?

I remind you that according to the legal opinion of the Virginia Attorney General, Boards of Visitors work for the people of Virginia, not the school administration. You have abrogated your responsibility not only to the taxpayers but also to the members of The Cadet at VMI by refusing to even give this subject an open hearing during the BOV sessions. How can anyone expect you to address the difficult issues impacting VMI and its cadet student body when you will not even take the time to simply talk about the repression of free speech at a nationally acclaimed student newspaper?

As Chair of AFSA representing 27 alumni groups across the US, I am asking you for a formal response to the following two questions:

1. Why didn’t the BOV take up this fundamental Freedom of Speech issue?
2. Why did you, as the BOV President, with the power to put anything on the agenda, deliberately not allow even a discussion of The Cadet?

The BOV’s refusal to even discuss these important First Amendment issues and the ongoing suppression of First Amendment Rights at the Institute diminish VMI’s and the BOV’s previous statements supporting Freedom of Speech. To be blunt, with your actions that essentially take over The Cadet, your previous pronouncements are nothing more than hollow statements. Objective observers like AFSA members, not to mention the Corps of Cadets, are left wondering how anyone expects the BOV to address the numerous admissions, financial, and other issues facing VMI if you hide from a simple discussion of a flagrant violation of our most basic constitutional right – Freedom of Speech.

I look forward to your immediate response so we can share it with our AFSA members and the public. I am also sharing this letter with our senior executive contacts at FIRE.

Sincerely,

Thomas M. Neale
President The Jefferson Council for the University of Virginia
Chair the Alumni Free Speech Alliance

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