For years, VMI was the only public college in Virginia where a sexual assault victim could be punished for what they were doing when the assault happened. Dan Helmer changed that.
Virginia Military Institute has long prided itself on producing leaders of character. But for years, the institution maintained a policy that made it harder for survivors of sexual assault to come forward — and easier for perpetrators to escape accountability.
Until this year, VMI was the only public college in Virginia exempt from a state law protecting survivors from disciplinary action for drug or alcohol use connected to a sexual assault. In plain terms: if a cadet was assaulted after drinking at a party, they could face punishment for the drinking — on top of everything else they’d already been through. That threat of punishment kept survivors silent, and it kept perpetrators safe.
Dan Helmer spent years fighting to close that loophole.
This session, his bill passed both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly unanimously. VMI — which had previously opposed the change — endorsed the final legislation. The bill was signed into law, bringing VMI in line with every other public college in the Commonwealth.
For Dan, this wasn’t a close call. It was a matter of basic accountability.
“We should give survivors the safety net to report assaults so that we ensure perpetrators of sex assault never serve in the military,” he said.
Dan is a West Point graduate and Army veteran who believes deeply in military education and the institutions that support it. A college that trains future military officers cannot send the message that reporting a sexual assault comes with consequences for the victim. The cadets VMI produces go on to lead soldiers. They need to be the kind of leaders who protect the people in their care — and that starts with an institution that does the same.
The bill also extended protections to survivors who may have violated curfew on the night of the assault — another barrier that had kept victims from coming forward.
A 2021 state investigation found that sexual assault was prevalent at VMI, that the culture allowed it to persist, and that reporting remained rare. About 14 percent of female cadets surveyed said they had been sexually assaulted at VMI. Sixty-three percent said another cadet had confided in them that they’d been assaulted or harassed. The exemption from the immunity law was one more structural reason survivors stayed quiet.
Dan has worked for years to change VMI’s culture and bring accountability to an institution that receives public funding and holds public trust. This bill is part of that larger effort — alongside legislation creating a task force to review VMI’s progress on addressing racism and sexism, and a bill ending state-issued Robert E. Lee license plates.
Military service demands integrity. So do the institutions that prepare people for it.
Read the original Washington Post coverage of this legislation here.