Probe inconclusive on racist picture in Va. governor’s yearbook

NORFOLK, Va. — An investigation ordered up by a Virginia medical school failed to determine whether Gov. Ralph Northam is in a 1984 yearbook photo of a man in blackface next to someone in a Ku Klux Klan hood and robe.

Investigators with a law firm hired by Eastern Virginia Medical School said Wednesday they couldn’t conclusively establish the identities of either person in the 35-year-old picture that nearly destroyed Northam’s career when it came to light in February.

They also said they couldn’t determine how the photo ended up on Northam’s yearbook page, but found no evidence it was put there by mistake or as a prank.

The Democratic governor initially acknowledged he was in the picture and apologized without saying which costume he was in, then reversed course the next day, saying he was convinced he was not in the photo. But he acknowledged he wore blackface once decades ago, to look like Michael Jackson for a dance contest.

“No individual that we interviewed has told us from personal knowledge that the governor is in the photograph, and no individual with knowledge has come forward to us to report that the governor is in the photograph,” said the report, conducted by the law firm McGuireWoods.

The findings are unlikely to have a major effect on state politics or Northam, who managed to survive the furor and has been trying mightily since then to make amends with the black community.

Virginia politics was turned upside down in a matter of hours last winter after a conservative website posted the picture. The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, other key Democratic groups and top allies immediately called on him to resign.

Investigators said Northam did not believe he was in the photo when he first saw it but did not want to issue an immediate denial in case someone contradicted him.

“The best we can conclude is that he erred on the side of caution initially and immediately regretted not having denied,” said attorney Richard Cullen, who led the investigation.

During the uproar, Northam defied calls to resign and said he wanted to focus his remaining three years in office on addressing racial inequities.

The pressure on him to step down significantly lessened after scandal enveloped his potential successors, both Democrats. Two women publicly accused Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault, which he denied. And just days after calling on Northam to resign, Attorney General Mark Herring announced he, too, had worn in the 1908s when he was in college.

Both Fairfax and Herring also rejected calls to resign. And other politicians around the South soon had their own explaining to do over yearbook images taken long ago.

The three interlocking scandals briefly raised the possibility that Virginia’s top three Democrats would lose their jobs and the Republican House speaker would become governor.

While Northam was all but invisible in February and much of March, he is making routine public appearances again. And he has won praise from black lawmakers and others for such moves as ending the suspension of driver’s licenses for motorists with unpaid fines, and a review into how schools teach the nation’s racial history.

Opponents still use the incident against him. House Majority Leader Todd Gilbert recently accused Northam of choosing to “repair his own racist legacy” rather than protect victims of domestic abuse after the governor vetoed a bill requiring a mandatory jail term for repeat offenders.

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Suderman reported from Richmond, Virginia.