Virginia’s leading press organization has decided to uphold its annual award for “integrity” to a student newspaper at Virginia Military Institute, despite plagiarized material and an undisclosed conflict of interest in its reporting — the backing of an alumnus waging a legal battle over the school’s diversity policies.
The review, whose findings were released Thursday, also found that the press organization could be sued for defamation if it rescinded the award, presented to the Cadet at the VPA’s annual banquet in May.
The Cadet, which is staffed by VMI students working independently of the school, won the contest’s highest honor for articles about VMI’s ongoing efforts to foster a more inclusive environment for women and minorities. Virginia’s former governor, Ralph Northam (D), ordered an investigation into the state-funded school in 2020 after Washington Post articles revealed racist incidents.
Some of the Cadet stories submitted to the VPA contest were critical of VMI’s subsequent “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) efforts, characterizing it as a disruptive initiative that upset tradition and unity at the 183-year-old school.
The press association began its review after a news site called Cardinal News revealed that the paper had failed to disclose that the Cadet’s “senior mentor” was 1979 graduate Bob Morris, who has filed lawsuits over the very diversity programs the Cadet had reported on. Morris helped revive the paper in 2021 after it had gone defunct in 2016 and heads the nonprofit foundation that underwrites it.
Among the stories the Cadet submitted to the contest was a lengthy and favorable account of a lawsuit filed by Morris’s company that challenged part of VMI’s DEI program. The story did not reveal Morris’s role.
Disclosure of such a fact is part of basic journalistic transparency, enabling a reader to judge whether a news source is slanting the news to favor a vested interest.
A subsequent report by The Post found that the lawsuit story had duplicated several sentences from a news release issued two months earlier by a VMI alumni group, Protect Honor, that has generally opposed VMI’s DEI initiatives. Protect Honor’s website domain is registered to Morris.
Plagiarism typically subjects a journalist to strong disciplinary action, including dismissal, in many news organizations.
The VPA hired Conrad Shumadine, a retired Norfolk attorney, to review the award to the Cadet. He concluded in his report to the association’s board that the Cadet had followed the contest’s rule and that the VPA had no procedure or mechanism in place for overturning the contest judges’ decision. “I conclude the award is final and is not subject to challenge,” he wrote.
He also suggested that rescinding the award on the basis of a plagiarism allegation could invite litigation. “A determination that any journalist or aspiring journalist violated the minimum standards of the profession could be defamatory and subject the VPA to litigation, and if found by a jury to be false to possible damage awards,” he wrote.
Shumadine also seemed to clear the Cadet of plagiarism. “In this case,” he wrote, “it seems clear the contributions of the winner are original.”
The VPA’s executive director, Betsy Edwards, said Friday the board had accepted Shumadine’s conclusions. “We believe the report speaks for itself,” she said, declining to comment further.
Morris did not return a request for comment.
The VPA has not disclosed the name of the judge who oversaw the category that the Cadet won.