An investigation into Virginia governor Ralph Northam’s Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook found that the school president, a political donor to Northam’s campaign, was aware of the racist picture and decided to keep it secret.
The report, released in full by the school Wednesday, says EVMS president Richard Homan was alerted by his staff of the picture on Northam’s yearbook page of a man in blackface together with an individual in a Ku Klux Klan hood while Northam was running for office.
“The staff members were advising the president at the time of the photograph and asking if EVMS had an obligation to or should do something about it, such as notifying Governor Northam about it,” the report says. “The president of EVMS decided that the school should not take steps to publicly announce the photograph or to call Governor Northam’s attention to it.”
The report says staff members “assumed” Northam would “already be aware of what was on his personal yearbook page,” and Homan “wanted the school to move forward with new initiatives rather than focus on the past.”
The report does not specifically say when Homan was made aware of the picture, but says it came as Northam was running for public office. Homan became president of the school in 2013 as Northam was running for lieutenant governor. He decided in 2014 that he was terminating yearbooks at the school. – READ MORE