The Cadet newspaper and The Cadet Foundation were honored, by unanimous acclimation, to become full members of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance (AFSA). By this honor, Virginia Military Institute (VMI) cadets, alumni, faculty. and staff at VMI now join a prestigious collection of alumni groups representing Ivy League and other major institutions of higher education across the United States. These include Bucknell, Cornell, Davidson, Harvard, Lafayette, Macalester, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton, Stanford, University of North Carolina, University of Virginia, Washington & Lee, Wofford, and Yale.
Tom Rideout, AFSA co-chairman and president of The Generals Redoubt at Washington & Lee (W&L) University, issued the following statement on behalf of ASFA: “The Alumni Free Speech Association (AFSA) is thrilled to announce that The Cadet Foundation will represent the Virginia Military Institute as its fifteenth group member.
“AFSA was created in October 2021 for two purposes. One was to serve as an umbrella group to gather a strong nucleus of higher education alternative alumni associations with a shared mission of supporting free speech, academic freedom, and viewpoint diversity. It seeks to provide a variety of forums for information exchange and operational methods to pursue them. AFSA is building a tool kit, developing communications channels and content, and acquiring strategic allies to allow its members to pursue these goals on their specific campuses. The association also recognizes that its member groups will have unique collections of campus battles to wage, some with free speech issues and others without. So there exists an embedded goal to provide a place for information sharing on a range of broad problem-solving issues and capabilities. Continue reading
