⁍ The head of the Virginia Military Institute resigned under pressure from top state officials on Monday following a published report that the 181-year-old military college was steeped in a culture of racism.

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⁍ J. H. Binford Peay III told its board he was stepping down after learning on Friday that Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and ‘certain legislative leaders had lost confidence in my leadership … and desired my resignation’
Peay’s resignation, which the head of the state-sponsored college’s governing board said he accepted ‘regretfully,’ took effect on Monday.

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– The head of the Virginia Military Institute resigned under pressure from top state officials on Monday following a published report that the 181-year-old military college was steeped in a culture of racism, Reuters reports. J. H. Binford Peay III, who had been the institute’s superintendent for 17 years, told its board he was stepping down after learning on Friday that Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and “certain legislative leaders had lost confidence in my leadership … and desired my resignation.” Peay’s resignation, which the head of the state-sponsored college’s governing board said he accepted ‘regretfully,’ took effect on Monday. “You have profoundly changed our school for the better,’ John William Boland, president of the school’s Board of Visitors, said in a letter to Peay. Northam’s press secretary, Alena Yarmosky, said while the governor was grateful for Peay’s service, the college now has ‘the opportunity to counter-balance a long legacy with a clear-eyed view of the future.’ ‘Change is overdue at VMI, and the Board of Visitors bears a deep responsibility to embrace it,’ Yarmosky said in an email.