The Higher Education Subcommittee advanced bills on IEP transition guidelines and VMI sexual assault reporting while continuing or tabling several others; the hearing's most contentious moment came on HB 1374, a VMI Board of Visitors governance bill that drew roughly 40 online witnesses and was passed by for the day after sharp disagreement among members.
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Delegate Fagans argued that without true structural change to the Board of Visitors nothing will change at VMI and cited racial and governance concerns including the removal of VMI's first Black superintendent. Delegate Garrett called the bill 'like the baby with the Bathwater Act,' arguing VMI is rated as high as number four in the nation and that 49 states 'would give their left leg' to have such an institution. Delegate Tata argued the bill involves a transfer of governance to VSU, which has a different mission and is 163 miles away. NAACP representatives Galene Knoit and Jeremiah Woods supported the bill, while VMI alumni, parents, and former Board of Visitors member Laura Tyler Chambers opposed it, with Chambers calling it 'a sledgehammer' that 'will shake scholarships, derail commissioning timelines and drive away the faculty and staff who keep the place running.'
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“George Mason, William Mary Christopher Newport, jmu, umw, vcu, odu. What do all those schools have in common? Madam Chair? Those schools all have one thing in common. Their graduates earn less than VMI graduates five years out of school. In fact, VMI is rated as high as number four in the nation in respected surveys. They're top 30 in engineering, top 50 overall, 49 states. Madam Chair, would give their left leg to have an institution as successful and prestigious as the Virginia Military Institute. And we're trying to gut ours.”
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Sign in to subscribeIs present. The higher education subcommittee meeting will come to order. The clerk will open the roll and members are asking if indicate their attendance on the electronic voting system. Give it one second. The clerk will close the roll. Today we have. 11 bills before the committee. First up we have. Do I have a packet? Right here. I'm just going to go in numerical order. So we'll start with Delegate Cohen with House Bill 468. Thank you so much. Good morning. Thank you. Madam Chair, I first would like to ask the committee to move the substitute, please. Is there a motion to move the committee substitute? All those in favor? Aye. Hearing no opposition. The substitute is before us. Thank you very much. And you'll see the substitute is pretty similar. But it does. We worked with Shev over the weekend just to make sure that people understood that these are guidelines. I got a little bit worried about some of the text of. I didn't want folks to think that this was a mandate. This is meant to be a tool. So House Bill 468 is substituted. Would require the State Council of Higher Education for…
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