J. H. Binford Peay III, who had been the institute's superintendent for 17 years, told its board he was stepping down after learning on Friday that
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and "certain legislative leaders had lost confidence in my leadership ... and desired my resignation." "You have profoundly changed our school for the better," John William Boland, president of the school's Board of Visitors, said in a letter to Peay.
Last week, Northam and several top elected officials and lawmakers wrote to the board to express concern "about the clear and appalling culture of ongoing structural racism" at the college.