Louis Hansen
Senior Editor, Investigative JournalismLouis Hansen is co-founder and senior editor of The Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO. He’s been a journalist for more than 20 years in New York, Philadelphia, Hampton Roads and Silicon Valley. He was an enterprise and investigative reporter for The Virginian-Pilot for more than a decade, covering state government, military affairs and criminal justice. He served as a combat correspondent in Iraq and the Persian Gulf, covered the Virginia legislature and state and federal elections. Hansen has won national and state awards for his work. His profile of a teenage gang member, “The Girl Who Took Down the Gang,” was published in a collection of the ten best newspaper narratives of 2012. Louis can be reached be reached at louis.hansen@vcij.org.
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Proposed sales, sudden firings strike commonwealth’s urban crescent -
A new state commission will seek documentation on campus expansions from dozens of Virginia public colleges and universities. -
After graduating from the Naval Academy and serving 12 years as a helicopter pilot and instructor, Julie Hendricks has taken on a new commission — poll worker. -
Nonprofit newsroom claims state Department of Criminal Justice Services improperly withheld names and records of law enforcement officers, preventing the public from tracking wayward cops. -
Ken Mallory reviewed ballots in a historically close Newport News election. One vote made all the difference. -
The state budget approved May 13 creates a panel to probe the displacement of Black families by public college and university developments and consider possible redress -
Sixty-plus years ago, the white leaders of Newport News, Virginia, seized the core of a thriving Black community to build a college. The school has been gobbling up the remaining houses ever since. -
Black enrollment at Virginia’s Christopher Newport University fell by more than half under longtime president Paul Trible, a former Republican senator who wanted to “offer a private school experience.” By 2021, only 2.4% of full-time professors were Black. -
In response to our reporting, state Delegate Delores McQuinn said a task force could shed light on the impact of college expansion in Virginia. Officials are also calling for displaced families to receive redress, from scholarships to reparations. -
Schools, including Old Dominion and the flagship University of Virginia, have expanded by dislodging Black families, sometimes by a city’s threat or use of eminent domain.
