"When the Virginia Press Association handed out its annual journalism awards in early May, the big winner was a little college newspaper. The Cadet, produced by students at the Virginia Military Institute, took home the top prize — for “Journalistic Integrity and Community Service” — for editorials and articles about the school’s contentious diversity issues.

The Cadet was the first student paper to win the integrity prize in the 75 years since the association started awarding it. Making its victory all the sweeter was the fact that the paper, moribund since 2016, had just been revived in 2021 as an independent publication.

The press association is now investigating whether the paper’s win was tainted by an undisclosed conflict of interest: the fact that the Cadet’s “senior mentor” is a VMI alumnus who has waged a legal battle against the school diversity programs that the student journalists have been covering. The alum, Bob Morris, helped revive the paper in 2021 and heads the nonprofit foundation that underwrites it.

'The question is: Did [the Cadet] win fairly, did it follow all our rules, and, if not, what should we do about it?' said Betsy Edwards, who directs the press association. 'At this point, I don’t have an answer,'" reports The Washington Post.

Photo: Cadets at the Virginia Military Institute in 2021. (Parker Michels-Boyce for The Washington Post)