The Virginia House of Delegates has formed a select committee on maintaining campus safety and allowing students to exercise their First Amendment rights, after more than 125 arrests at four of Virginia’s college campuses.

According to Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Richmond, the Senate will announce its plans to form a similar committee on Tuesday.

“I’ve heard very different scenarios from those who were on the ground and in encampments either as students or as community members that were part of those protests,” Hashmi said. “I think it’s important to get a very clear picture of what’s happened.”

Demonstrators and faculty members have criticized law enforcement and college administrators for their handling of anti-war protests, including using pepper spray to clear encampments. While the majority of the protests in Virginia have called for a cease-fire in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas militants and have drawn attention to the deaths of thousands of Israeli and Palestinian citizens, some demonstrators have also claimed that protests have connections to antisemitic activity on campuses, WRIC reports.

Hashmi, who serves as chair of the Senate Education and Health Committee, said on Monday she wants a more precise picture of how the protests unfolded after hearing various reports about the demonstrations that have yielded 80 student arrests at the University of Mary Washington, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia over the Israel-Hamas war.

On Saturday, several graduating students walked out at the start of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s keynote address at VCU’s commencement ceremony after he expressed his support of law enforcement’s response to campus demonstrations at Virginia’s colleges.

Two days later, the House announced a 12-member select committee would be formed to provide potential legislative recommendations.

House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, said in a letter that Virginia must understand the policies allowing students to exercise their protected right to free speech while maintaining campus safety.

“It is imperative that we understand the protocol followed and resources used by our local and state police when requests for assistance are made by our institutions of higher education,” Scott wrote. “We should identify areas where we can improve state policies in order to mitigate the incidents of unrest and arrest that we have witnessed this spring.”

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Incumbent Rep. Carol Miller has seen plenty of political challengers throughout her long, popular career, but perhaps not one as boisterous as Derrick Evans, her opponent in Tuesday’s Republican primary in West Virginia’s 1st Congressional District.

Evans was a participant in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, and his verbal attacks on the three-term congresswoman have grown louder as the election has neared.

Both are huge backers of former President Donald Trump, but that’s where the similarities may end.

Miller has kept a low profile compared to some of her more outspoken colleagues since becoming the third woman from West Virginia elected to Congress in 2018. The 73-year-old bison farmer and small business owner also served six terms in the West Virginia House of Delegates. Her father is the late U.S. Rep. Samuel Devine of Ohio.

In 2022, Miller received 66% of the vote in a five-candidate GOP primary en route to winning her third term in Congress. This time, Evans is her only opponent.

The 39-year-old Evans, whose campaign over the past month has pushed out emails almost daily highlighting his love for Trump and his attacks on Miller, was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates two months before the Jan. 6 riot. He calls himself the only elected official who “had the courage” to stand behind efforts to temporarily halt the certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. He livestreamed himself on Facebook cheering on what he described as a “revolution.”

Evans was arrested two days after the riot and resigned his seat a month before the 2021 legislative session. He pleaded guilty to a felony civil disorder charge and served three months in prison. At his sentencing hearing, Evans apologized for his actions, but he did an about-face upon leaving prison. He began portraying himself as a victim of a politically motivated prosecution.

Evans once called himself a Democrat, finishing sixth out of seven candidates in a state House primary in 2016. He then switched to the Libertarian Party in the general election and finished last among five candidates.

In the campaign against Miller, Evans has called her a “commie RINO” who “refused to stand and fight with President Trump,” as well as an “undocumented Democrat.” Miller was aligned with Trump in nearly 100% of her House votes while the former president was in office.

Evans has echoed false claims still made by Trump that the 2020 election was stolen. And in the hours after Evans and other rioters had stormed the Capitol, Miller voted to challenge the Electoral College results in two states Biden won. Miller said in a statement at the time that she had a constitutional duty to “ensure that all Americans have access to free, fair, and accurate elections.”

In an email to The Associated Press, Miller did not directly address the 2020 result. But she said she is the only candidate in the race who “has never been a registered Democrat or run for office as a Democrat.”

The winner of Tuesday’s race moves on to the Nov. 5 general election to face one of two Democrats from Charleston — Vietnam veteran Jim Umberger or educator Chris Reed.

In the 2nd Congressional District, state Treasurer Riley Moore was among five candidates seeking the GOP nomination for the seat being vacated by Republican Alex Mooney, who is running for U.S. Senate. Democrat Steven Wendelin was running unopposed.

West Virginia hasn’t elected a Democrat to the House since 2012 and was one of only two states where Trump won every county in 2016 and 2020.

The Shenandoah County School Board in Virginia has decided to restore the names of Confederate generals Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Turner Ashby to two local schools. This is a controversial reversal nearly four years after the names were changed amid nationwide protests calling for a reckoning over racial injustice after the murder of George Floyd.

Mountain View High School will once again be called Stonewall Jackson High School, while Honey Run Elementary School will revert to Ashby-Lee Elementary School. NPR reports that the school board approved this change by a 5-1 vote, with proponents arguing that the removal of the Confederate figures’ names in 2020 was a “knee-jerk” response to protests following George Floyd’s murder by police.

However, opponents, including some current students, cautioned that restoring the Confederate names would associate the schools and their county with regressive, racist ideologies. The debate over the name change began last month, marking the second attempt to restore the names after a failed try in 2022.

During the meeting, several students, including Pria Dua and Eden Shelhamer, expressed concerns about the divisive nature of the argument and urged the board to consider the impact on students’ perspectives and values. 

“School board minutes from 1959 reveal that the decision to name our school after Stonewall Jackson was a product of massive resistance,” said Dua, referring to an era when Virginia’s leaders aggressively fought attempts to integrate the state’s schools.

“I acknowledge that the community has been left divided and unhappy over the initial name change,” Dua said. But, she asked the board, “By taking this step backward in 2024, what foot are we putting forward? What legacy are you leaving behind for my generation to inherit?”

“The fact that this discussion is receiving a disproportionately vast amount of attention from the county deeply disappoints me,” Shelhamer said, “and leads me to wonder whether we are operating in the interests of our students or the preservation of our parents’ pride.”

Aliyah Ogle, a Black eighth-grader and athlete, highlighted the discomfort she would feel representing a figure who fought for her ancestors’ enslavement.

“I would have to represent a man that fought for my ancestors to be slaves,” she said, adding that she would feel as if she’s being disrespectful both to her ancestors and her family’s values.

“It is your job to make our schools a place where all students are valued and respected,” Ogle said. She later added, “If this board decides to restore the names, I would not feel like I was valued and respected, and you would not be doing your job.”

Some residents, like Stuart Didawick, advocated for restoring the Confederate names based on their familial ties to the community.” We are the majority,” Didawick said, “that’s the way the government works.” He added, “This board has a moral and ethical obligation to the citizens    you represent to undo the dirtiest, most underhanded political stunt in the history of Shenandoah County politics.”

Other residents pushed back on that notion and emphasized the importance of moving forward and not dwelling on divisive historical legacies.