NORFOLK, Va. — Lawyers hired to investigate racist content in Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbooks could not definitively say whether Gov. Ralph Northam appeared in the infamous blackface and KKK picture in the 1984 edition.

But a report released Wednesday says two EVMS presidents, including current President Richard Homan, were told about the racist photo while Northam was running for political offices and decided not to make it public.

“We understand President Homan’s reasoning was EVMS should not become involved, or be seen to become involved, in an election as it is a public body and a public institution, and that EVMS did not want there to be any suggestion that it had tried to influence Governor Northam in any respect by calling the photograph to his attention,” the document says.

The Norfolk medical school released the findings from Richmond law firm McGuire Woods in the form of a 36-page report.

In one case, the school’s alumni affairs director noticed the photo while preparing for a reunion event and was “shocked” by it, the report says. EVMS personnel decided to remove the 1984 yearbook from a table at the event “so as not to upset anyone who might see the photograph.” A McGuire Woods lawyer said the firm didn’t know when that reunion event occurred.

At a news conference at EVMS Wednesday, Homan stood by his decision not to tell Northam or the public about the photo earlier.

“I would make the same decision now,” he said. “We’re apolitical, and I did not feel that it was a necessary disclosure to make.”

The picture on Northam’s page shows a person dressed as a racist caricature, wearing a jacket, bow tie, plaid pants, hat and dark makeup. Beside that person is another individual in a white cloak and pointed hood, covering everything but the eyes. Each is holding what appears to be a can of beer.

After the photo was made public Feb. 1, Northam first apologized for appearing in it, then reversed himself a day later and said it wasn’t him.

McGuire Woods attempted to contact more than 80 former and current EVMS students going back to 1983 and interviewed 30, along with 15 current and former faculty, administration and staff.

In trying to determine who was in the photo, investigators spoke to five members of the 1984 yearbook staff.

“With respect to the Photograph on Governor Northam’s personal page, we could not conclusively determine the identity of either individual depicted in the Photograph,” the report says.

In a statement released Wednesday, Northam reiterated he wasn’t in the photo and said he is focusing on ways to use his position as governor to move forward on equity issues through the rest of his term.

“I know and understand the events of early February and my response to them have caused hurt for many Virginians and for that, I am sorry,” he said. “I felt it was important to take accountability for the photo’s presence on my page, but rather than providing clarity, I instead deepened pain and confusion.”

He said he’d “do it differently” if he could do it over again.

The McGuire Woods report is perhaps the only formal investigation into the photo scandal that nearly led to Northam’s political demise four months ago. The Democratic governor said during a news conference Feb. 2 that he, too, would be researching the photo, though it’s not clear whether he followed through with that promise.

Since then, Northam has not released any new information on the origins of the picture to the public. He previously suggested that it could have been added to his yearbook page in a layout mix-up.

But McGuire Woods’ review of EVMS yearbooks confirmed only one such mistake, in the 1986 yearbook, in which the captions under two faculty photos apparently had been switched.

The probe found EVMS yearbooks, which were published from 1976 to 2013, “repeatedly contained other content that could be offensive to women, minorities, certain ethnic groups and others. These issues or themes recurred over much of the time period in which the yearbooks were published, although with less frequency in the later years of the yearbooks’ publication.”

The yearbooks were “almost entirely student-run” with little to no staff oversight, the report says.

Northam was interviewed twice by the law firm and said he is “positive” he’s not in the racist photo but didn’t know who is.

“He just wants to exonerate himself, but doesn’t want to throw anyone under the bus,” the report says.

Northam told the investigators he was “very slender” in college and medical school and that the legs on the person in blackface are “much thicker than his.” He said the person in the KKK robes was “much shorter” than him and that he would’ve remembered dressing up in the robes or standing next to someone who did.

Northam said he did opposition research for his six political campaigns — for state Senate, lieutenant governor and governor — and it was “fascinating to him” that the photo never surfaced.

He said he didn’t remember whether he submitted any of the other photos on his page, even though he said he selected them, and that he wasn’t big on being in photos.

He said he did remember submitting the quote on the page (“There are more old drunks than old doctors in this world so I think I’ll have another beer”), but couldn’t remember ever seeing a proof or approving the page layout.

He didn’t have a copy of the yearbook and didn’t remember ordering or paying for one.

Northam came under scrutiny when a conservative news outlet, Big League Politics, posted the racist image Feb. 1. The site’s release of the picture occurred shortly after the governor made comments in support of a bill that would loosen restrictions on late-term abortions. Hours later The Virginian-Pilot and other media outlets confirmed the authenticity of the yearbook page.

After the photo came out, Northam released a statement, saying, “I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo, and for the hurt that decision caused then and now.”

He told the firm he’d felt he needed to be accountable, and his staff quickly put together a statement for him to accept responsibility for the photo.

But he recanted the next day during a nationally televised news conference in Richmond.

“When confronted with the images yesterday,” Northam said, “I was appalled that they appeared on my page but I believe then and now that I am not either of the people in that photo.”

He said he did remember an incident that same year when he did paint his face black, rubbing shoe polish on his cheeks to impersonate Michael Jackson for a dance contest.

Northam dismissed a flood of calls for his resignation from both sides of the political aisle.

EVMS hired McGuire Woods in February. The estimated cost of the law firm’s investigation is $300,000.

“No individual that we interviewed has told us from personal knowledge that the Governor is in the Photograph,” the report states, “and no individual with knowledge has come forward to us to report that the Governor is in the Photograph.”

In an emailed statement Wednesday, House Majority Leader Todd Gilbert, a Shenandoah Republican, said the report does nothing to restore the trust Northam lost after the photo surfaced.

“The report produced no substantive evidence to back up the Governor’s assertion that he is not in the photo and that he did not select it for the page,” he said.

 

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