Virginia Military Institute leaders say military college will keep Confederate statues

Leaders of Virginia Military Institute said Tuesday that the school will keep its Confederate statues and consider adding more historical context in the aftermath of last month’s violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.

At a VMI board of visitors meeting Tuesday, VMI Superintendent J.H. Binford Peay III defended the school’s traditions while declaring that “there’s no place for discrimination” at the state-supported military college. The school, founded in Lexington before the outbreak of the Civil War, has continually evolved since it was racially integrated in 1968, Peay said.

Other vestiges of the school’s Confederate ties — such as battle flags, the playing of “Dixie” and cadet salutes to a statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson — already have been phased out, the superintendent said.