When Virginia Military Institute announced last month that its commencement speaker Tuesday would be Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the college's superintendent released a statement praising the state's top executive — and the school itself.

"It is only fitting that the current leader of the commonwealth share his wisdom and guidance with the future leaders of Virginia and the nation," said Cedric T. Wins, a retired two-star Army general and a member of the college's Class of 1985. "We look forward to hosting him on post and showing him the treasure that is VMI."

But the visit by Youngkin (R) — who, as governor, is technically VMI's commander in chief and has been an outspoken foe of equity initiatives at Virginia's public schools — comes at an especially stressful moment for the nation's oldest state-supported military college.

VMI faces a plunge in applications that has forced the school to accept virtually anyone who applies; projected budget shortfalls for the next three years that exceed $14 million; the possible cutting of some of its Division I sports teams; growing apprehension that the college's Board of Visitors will remove Wins, VMI's first Black superintendent, once Youngkin appoints as many as four new members this summer; and a mostly white conservative group of alumni who continue to attack VMI's efforts to make the school more attractive to minorities and women.

Black students interviewed by The Washington Post said that some progress has been made but that racism remains a problem at VMI. Just weeks ago, one Black football player said, a high-ranking VMI official used the phrase "street thugs" to describe Black freshmen on the team — an incident now being investigated by the school.

The Lexington college, which didn't admit Black students until 1968 or women until 1997 and whose 1,500 cadets remain mostly white and male, began initiating diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) reforms after then-Gov. Ralph Northam (D) ordered an independent investigation into the college's racial climate. The probe, conducted by the law firm Barnes & Thornburg and released two years ago, found that the school suffered from "institutional racism and sexism."

During his gubernatorial campaign, Youngkin questioned the investigation and won support from the alumni leading the backlash against it.

At Board of Visitors meetings last month, the 183-year-old school's enrollment drop, sky-high acceptance rate and financial forecast stoked existential fears about its future.

"I think we have to demonstrate more of a sense of urgency," David Miller, one of the board's three vice presidents, told colleagues at one session. "The big problem with the budget shortfall related to enrollment, and now we're seeing what's going on in athletics — we need to move ahead or this thing is going to get out of hand. … If you push those numbers out two or three years without any changes, we're going to be in a world of hurt."

VMI will receive $29 million in state funding for the 2023-2024 academic year — roughly a quarter of its $116 million budget. Tuition and fees total $31,474 for in-state students and $62,176 for out-of-state students.

Thomas Zarges, who chairs the VMI Alumni Agencies Board of Directors, acknowledged that the school, known for its grueling, months-long training period for freshmen called the "Rat Line" and its one-strike-and-you're-out honor code system, is facing powerful head winds.

"Recently, we have been swept up in the unforgiving political climate of the day. Some have cast the Institute as an anachronism and questioned the wisdom of maintaining it," Zarges wrote in the most recent issue of the college's alumni magazine. He praised Wins and other VMI leaders who have "refused to compromise the Institute's bedrock principles: The sanctity of our honor code and system and the rigors of our unique educational methods. … VMI remains VMI. It endures."

One major question facing VMI is whether the application and enrollment drops can allow the school to live up to — as its website proclaims — an "earned reputation as one of America's premier institutions of higher education." As of May 11, VMI had received 989 completed applications and accepted 969 students — an acceptance rate of 98 percent, according to the college's spokesman, Bill Wyatt.

So far, VMI has received deposits or other required enrollment forms from 457 students who plan to enter its Class of 2027, surpassing last year's incoming class by about 80. The college set a goal to reach at least 450 freshmen and hopes to return to about 500 by next year.

The roots of VMI's enrollment problem began about a decade ago, according to an analysis by two of the college's economics professors that was presented earlier this year to the school's board.

In 2013, VMI attracted 1,840 applicants and offered appointments to 952 people, giving the school an acceptance rate of about 52 percent, the study said. That year, 502 of those students enrolled.

But over the next decade, VMI's applications steadily plummeted. Between 2018 and 2019, applications fell from 1,426 to 1,193, giving the school an acceptance rate of 80 percent.

In 2021, during Wins' first academic year as superintendent, the COVID pandemic, and the state-ordered investigation into the college, VMI actually saw a bump in applications, from 1,164 to 1,196. The "rat mass," as the freshman class is known, in August of that year was just under 500.

But in 2022, VMI's enrollment suffered a serious blow. That year, VMI got only 912 applications and offered spots to 879 people, for an acceptance rate of about 96 percent. Of those admitted, only 374 showed up, the study found. About 8 percent of VMI's students are Black.

At one of the board meetings in late April, VMI's admissions director, Joseph Hagy, displayed a report showing that VMI had so far rejected only eight applicants. Lara Chambers, another of the board's vice presidents, expressed alarm.

"I know we're trying to get a volume, but, you know, what is the quality that we're getting?" Chambers asked. "Right now it looks like … if you apply to VMI, you're going to get in."

One slide in the VMI admissions director's presentation seemed to confirm Chambers' fears: Those accepted into the Class of 2027 had a slightly lower grade-point average than the students offered appointments in the two prior years — 3.63 compared with 3.69. The Class of 2027 appointees also included 110 people with GPAs of 2.75 or lower, more than double the number in the prior year, and had the fewest number of accepted students with 4.0 or higher than the prior three years. One accepted student this year has a GPA of 1.49.

"It's embarrassing, our acceptance rate. It feels like I am going to a community college," said a rising junior, who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation from fellow cadets and college officials. "I am concerned about the value of my degree. If we're accepting everyone, what does that say about the quality of the program we're supposed to be?"

Many of VMI's top competitors are not having the same issues.

For the past three years, interest in The Citadel, a rival military college in South Carolina, has soared: The number of applications climbed this year to 5,033, up from 2,592 in 2021, according to a Citadel spokesman. The college's acceptance rate is now 54 percent.

At Virginia Tech, the Corps of Cadets — the university's military leadership program — received 1,876 applications and accepted 1,304 people for an acceptance rate of 70 percent, according to Juan Espinoza, the college's associate vice provost for enrollment management and director of undergraduate admissions. The corps expects a freshman class of between 400 and 415 cadets — higher than in the previous years.

The school has focused, Espinoza said, on recruiting racial and ethnic minorities, military veterans and those who are low-income or are the first in their families to attend college. Within their first two months on campus, all Virginia Tech first-year and transfer students must complete a diversity, equity and inclusion training module, which Espinoza said "covers three main content areas: Identities; Power, Privilege and Oppression; and Creating a Culture of Respect."

"Students who apply here recognize inclusive excellence — diversity, equity and inclusion — as an important value. That's something they're looking for," Espinoza said.

But at VMI, the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office was recently renamed Diversity, Opportunity and Inclusion in order to match the title of the state office in Richmond led by Martin D. Brown, a Youngkin appointee. When Brown visited VMI in late April to conduct a mandatory training for the college's faculty and staff, the Black Republican declared that "DEI is dead" and said that pursuing equity means "you're not pursuing merit or excellence or achievement."

Black lawmakers, incensed by Brown's remarks, called for his resignation. L. Douglas Wilder, a former Virginia governor and the first elected Black governor in U.S. history, called on Youngkin to fire Brown in early May.

"The state of affairs at VMI is in a mess," Wilder said in an interview. "General Wins has steadfastly addressed the issues, has tried to improve upon the current status, but he's been met with staunch opposition from a minority viewpoint from the Board of Visitors as well as dissident alumni, who are bragging that they've got the support of the governor relative to board appointments — and that's troubling. I'm concerned that a new board would remove Wins and, if they don't, they will make life miserable for him."

Wilder also worries that the VMI alumni who have been mocking the college's diversity efforts are hurting the school's reputation. Days after The Post published an article about Brown's remarks at VMI, a political action committee called the Spirit of VMI praised Brown. But then the PAC published a cartoon on Facebook and Twitter depicting Brown as a doll whose face, some say, resembles a monkey.

When The Post shared the cartoon with Wilder, he was stunned.

"It's clearly racist," Wilder said.

Asked for comment, Matt Daniel, chairman of the Spirit of VMI PAC who graduated with Wins in 1985, denied the drawing depicted a monkey. "It is not a monkey. That doesn't even make sense," he wrote in a text. "It is a voodoo doll in a business suit being harassed by a hostile writer."

Despite the college's DEI trainings, a handful of Black students who attended VMI this year and were interviewed by The Post said the college is still struggling with racism.

On April 28, one Black senior on the football team said, he was in a meeting with VMI's commandant, Adrian T. Bogart III, to discuss his freshman mentee, a Black football player with a high number of demerits. Bogart asked why the mentee, along with other Black freshmen on the team, had so many demerits and suggested that VMI's previous football coach "recruits street thugs."

"I was shocked," recalled the Black cadet, who graduates Tuesday but was unwilling to be quoted by name for fear of retaliation by VMI alumni. "He didn't try to take it back. Of course, I was upset. I am Black, and I am on the football team, and I was here for the state investigation. To use that term 'thug' in that context is very derogatory."

Bogart did not return messages seeking comment. Wyatt, VMI's spokesman, said in a statement that "VMI is aware of the allegation and is investigating. Once the facts are established, appropriate action will be taken if necessary. … The superintendent maintains a zero tolerance policy for racism and discrimination of any kind."

A second Black football player, who left VMI in February, said white upperclassmen frequently called him "thug" whenever he broke one of the college's rules governing the way freshmen walk on campus or eat their food in the dining hall, or whenever he talked back to an upperclassman who yelled obscenities in his face for failing to properly "strain" — a posture that involves tucking the chin tightly into the neck and standing rigidly upright.

"They called me that word too many times to count," said the former cadet, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wants to apply to other colleges and worries that his public statements might hurt his chances of admission.

But Marquan Jones, 22, a Black senior from Charlottesville who graduates in December, said he's seen the school make strides to improve its racial climate. The college just announced that a rising Black senior, Mark Shelton II, will be next year's regimental commander — the highest-ranking cadet in the college. Jones also noted that the school's superintendent and his chief of staff, John Young, are Black.

"It's a sign of hope," Jones said. "It shows other Black cadets what they can be when they strive for greatness."

previous coverage

• VMI's first Black superintendent under attack by conservative alumni group
• After 2 years of turmoil and division, enrollment plummets at Virginia Military Institute

related stories

• ‘DEI is dead’: At VMI, Youngkin’s diversity chief slams diversity, equity, inclusion
• At VMI, two classmates — one Black, one white — war over school’s future