By IAN SHAPIRA | The Washington Post | Published: January 23, 2021 The commandant of the Virginia Military Institute, William "Bill" Wanovich, who came under scrutiny for posing in a photo mocking Hispanics at a campus Halloween party three years ago, is retiring at the end of the academic year, the college announced Friday. Wanovich's pending departure marks the latest major disruption at VMI since The Washington Post published a series of stories exposing racism at the nation's oldest state-supported military college. The revelations prompted Virginia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, a VMI graduate, to order an independent investigation into what he called the school's "clear and appalling culture of ongoing structural racism." The investigation will be completed later this year.