The Virginia Military Institute’s board voted Thursday to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson that currently stands in front of the historic barracks on campus, a school spokesperson said. Spokesman William “Bill” Wyatt said the board also voted to take a number of other steps toward addressing issues of diversity, including directing the adoption of a diversity hiring plan and creating a permanent diversity office. The moves come as VMI, the nation’s oldest state-supported military college, is facing an outside investigation into what Virginia officials have characterized as a culture of “structural racism.”
