Virginia Military Institute’s first chief diversity officer, Jamica Love, resigned this week, nearly two years after she assumed the job in the wake of a state-ordered investigation into racism at the college.

Love, 49, who leaves her position at the end of June, was the highest-ranking Black woman at the nation’s oldest state-supported military college. But she faced intense backlash from some alumni and cadets as soon as her hiring was announced in May 2021.

The college’s superintendent, retired Army Maj. General Cedric T. Wins, announced Love’s resignation Thursday. Wins, VMI’s first Black leader in its 183-year history, emailed the school community, saying that Love served “with distinction.”

“She has been singularly focused on preparing our cadets for the world which they will enter after graduation and making VMI an inclusive institution for any interested and qualified prospective cadet, faculty, or staff member,” he wrote, adding that she “has been an exemplar of professionalism and her expertise and positive attitude will be greatly missed.”

Love declined an interview request.

She was hired just days before an independent investigation, ordered by then-Gov. Ralph Northam (D), published damning conclusions about the college’s culture and racial climate. Among the probe’s findings: “institutional racism and sexism are present, tolerated, and left unaddressed at VMI.”

The Lexington college, which will receive $29 million in state funding for the 2023-24 academic year, didn’t admit Black men until 1968 or women until 1997. Its 1,500 cadets remain mostly White and male, and efforts to make the school more welcoming to minorities and women have been met with fierce resistance.

In his note about her departure, Wins said that VMI “remains committed” to three principles that the school’s Board of Visitors established right after the investigation was completed: “1. To create and foster a more diverse VMI. 2. To create and foster a safe, equitable, and inclusive environment for all on post. 3. To assure that we maintain a safe, rigorous process for escalating issues which have even the potential to violate the Code of a Cadet.”

After Love leaves VMI, her deputy, Briana Williams, will become interim chief diversity officer.

Wins ended his email by saying that he would use “this change in staffing as an opportunity to reevaluate how best to achieve these principles in a manner that is unique to VMI’s needs and preserves the fundamentals of the VMI experience.”

Bill Wyatt, VMI’s spokesman, told The Washington Post that the school’s diversity office “isn’t going away” and that the school will continue conducting and developing diversity training sessions in collaboration with the cadets and the Board of Visitors.

Love’s departure comes after a tumultuous academic year for her department during which some of the college’s alumni frequently spoke to school administrators and Board of Visitors members condemning diversity, equity and inclusion. Their attacks coincided with a national anti-DEI movement. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) last month signed a bill defunding DEI programs at the state’s public colleges. Texas lawmakers also just passed a ban on DEI at its state colleges.

At VMI, the biggest opposition to DEI comes from a political action committee of mostly White conservative graduates called The Spirit of VMI. One of its donors is a Board of Visitors member, Thomas “Teddy” Gottwald, chief executive of a petroleum additives company, who gave $25,000 to the PAC. The PAC believes DEI programs teach Americans that White people are racist, one of its essays recently argued, and weakens VMI’s military training.

The group’s chairman Matt Daniel has denounced “equity” for its “Marxist philosophies” and wrote on the PAC’s website in February that DEI “promotes racial division, encourages victimhood, and engages in shaming or protecting individuals based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or religious or moral beliefs.”

This spring, VMI renamed Love’s office, excising the word “equity” from Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and instead calling it the “Diversity, Opportunity, and Inclusion” office to match the title of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) diversity office in Richmond. The purging of “equity” was celebrated by some of Love’s biggest detractors in the VMI community, especially the PAC.

In April, when Youngkin’s chief diversity officer Martin Brown visited VMI’s campus to conduct a mandatory staff and faculty training, Brown declared that “DEI is dead” — a statement that also was celebrated by the PAC.

Perhaps the biggest blowup came in October when Love’s office invited lesbian author Kimberly Dark to give a speech on campus that was optional for cadets to attend and only attracted a small audience. Her talk addressed issues around body image and prodded cadets to openly engage with each other about matters of race or identity to “inspire change rather than forcing change.”

But some alumni were furious, and soon the PAC appeared to target Love in a cartoon published in one of its online newsletters. Shortly after the speech, in one of the group’s illustrations, entitled “New Year’s Resolution,” a trash can has a sign sticking out that says, “DEI” with a woman upside down, her legs sticking out clad in high heels.

The online vitriol against Love has been relentless.

In one Facebook group for VMI alumni, parents and cadets, the school’s announcement in May 2021 was posted and immediately attracted denunciations.

“Total crap. So are we searching for the best or just filling quotas. The whole idea of diversity officers is repugnant. You look for the best in a colorblind way as MLK would have said,” wrote Charles Gardner, whose LinkedIn profile identifies him as a 1974 VMI graduate and a family physician. “To bring in unqualified people just to fill a quota does [a] disservice to everyone. So once you bring unqualified people in and they leave, flunk out, or get drummed out do you now change the rules to keep them in anyway?”

Reached by phone on Thursday, Gardner told The Post he stood by his words and expressed approval at Love’s decision to resign.

On Jodel, an anonymous social media app popular with VMI students, Love’s resignation was met with a mix of denigration and praise.

“Why is everyone hating on Love?” one person wrote.

“I liked her a lot. If you went to her to talk she’d listen and try to help you,” came one reply.