6:00 News Story In 2023: Conflict over politics, diversity and shifting leadership in NC higher education Image by Clayton Henkel, courtesy photos. Since 2010, when Republicans took the majority in the North Carolina House and Senate for the first time in over a century, they have worked to transform the state, its government and institutions. For years, Newsline has documented the effects on one of the largest and most consequential of those institutions: the UNC System. In 2023, that system and its 16 university campuses saw major shifts in policy and leadership and faced unprecedented political influence. 1) Conflicts over diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) As the year opened, the politically appointed UNC System Board of Governors introduced a policy that would ban discussion of political debates, beliefs, affiliations, ideals or principles in employment and enrollment processes in the system and on its campuses. Proponents, including UNC System President Peter Hans, said the policy would provide politically neutral protections for intellectual freedom and freedom of speech for students, faculty and university employees. But critics, including faculty leaders, called the move part of a national conservative attack on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work. Some members of the board of governors and campus level boards of trustees, all political appointees of the General Assembly’s GOP majority, called the policy a necessary corrective for universities that had become liberal thought bubbles whose hiring policies often weeded out conservatives. From Newsline’s January story, which outlined the policy in its earliest stages: “[T]he University shall neither solicit nor require an employee or applicant for academic admission or employment to affirmatively ascribe to or opine about beliefs, affiliations, ideals, or principles regarding matters of contemporary political debate or social action as a condition to admission, employment, or professional advancement,” the proposed change reads. “Nor shall any employee or applicant be solicited or required to describe his or her actions in support of, or in opposition to, such beliefs, affiliations, ideals, or principles,” it reads. “Practices prohibited here include but are not limited to solicitations or requirements for statements of commitment to particular views on matters of contemporary political debate or social action contained on applications or qualifications for admission or employment or included as criteria for analysis of an employee’s career progression.” Andrew Tripp, general counsel for the UNC System, said nothing in the policy would prohibit a student or prospective employee offering their thoughts on any number of political or social issues. But they couldn’t be asked about them in an interview except as it would relate to their willingness to adhere to existing laws, agency policies or licensure and certification requirements. Mimi Chapman, chair of the faculty at UNC Chapel Hill, called the proposed change another example of political appointees on the system’s governing board overreaching into an area — hiring of faculty — that should be left to campus processes. “It’s more overreach, but at this point I’m not surprised by that,” Chapman said. DEI, a major target of conservatives, remained an issue throughout the year. In March, Newsline reported on an investigation by the General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Commission on Government Operations into Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) training programs employed by the UNC system and its campuses. From that story: ‘Diversity’, ‘equity’, ‘inclusion’, ‘accessibility’, ‘racism’, ‘anti-racism’, ‘anti-racist’, ‘oppression’, ‘internalized oppression’, ‘systemic racism’, ‘sexism’, ‘gender’, ‘LGBTQ+’, ‘white supremacy’, ‘unconscious bias’, ‘bias’, ‘microaggressions’, ‘critical race theory’, ‘intersectionality’, or ‘social justice.’” “When you look at it [a list of terms like the one requested from the UNC System], you can see that they can cherry pick — they can look for the Blacks, the gays, whoever,” said William Sturkey, a UNC-Chapel Hill history professor who specializes in post-1865 U.S. history and the history of race in the American South. “It’s just taking the playbook from a number of other states. This happens in American life, and especially happens with regard to the history of race in this country.” “The Jim Crow laws of the early 20th century were states emulating each other,” Sturkey said. “Louisiana passed some law about street cars and Mississippi said, ‘You know what? That’s a great idea. We want to do that too.’ It’s the same exact thing happening, without much thought I think to the unique situations in each state.” In June, conflict over diversity efforts on campuses were given a national spotlight when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that race could not be used as a factor in admissions at UNC-Chapel Hill and Harvard University. Students, faculty members, and some campus leaders lamented the decision while conservative appointees on the UNC System Board of Governors and campus level boards of trustees declared the decision proof the UNC-Chapel Hill should not have spent years defending its policy, which is common at both public and private universities and colleges. From Newsline’s story: Kotis has for years pushed for policies and statements that would oppose consideration of race in admissions and employment with the university system and its individual campuses. “I’ve never believed you can end discrimination with discrimination,” Kotis said. “And I don’t believe in quotas. I don’t think you should have two seats on an airplane for this group, two seats for this group and five seats for that group. I mean, that’s apartheid. It just doesn’t make any sense to have quotas. You cannot judge people based on the color of their skin, their gender or their religion. It doesn’t make sense.” Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat and UNC-Chapel Hill alumnus, strongly criticized the decision. “This decision undermines decades of progress made across the country to reduce systemic discrimination and promote diversity on campuses which is an important part of a quality education,” Cooper said in a statement. “Campus leaders will now have to work even harder to ensure that North Carolinians of all backgrounds are represented in higher education and to ensure strong, diverse student bodies at our colleges and universities to train the next generation of leaders for North Carolina and the nation.” UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz was taken to task by the UNC System Board of Governors for saying the decision was not what his administration had hoped. Conservative political appointees on the board questioned not just whether Guskiewicz would abide by the decision but whether he philosophically agreed with it, questioning whether a plan to cover tuition and fees for students whose families make less than $80,000 a year was a reaction to the decision. By the end of the year, Guskiewicz, who regularly clashed with members of the system’s governing board and his own campus’ board of trustees, would step down to become president of Michigan State University. That university’s board of trustees would praise the tuition plan for which he’d been criticized in North Carolina and his commitment to DEI work. 2) By April, the system and its campuses faced a raft of GOP-sponsored bills that sought to fundamentally change higher education in the state. Faculty members pushed back, issuing open letters decrying legislation that would fundamentally change the system and its universities and characterizing it as “a war on higher education in our state.” From Newsline’s story: The letter, published in The Daily Tar Heel and reproduced below in its entirety, makes the case against House Bill 715and House Bill 96, which would expand the power of politically appointed boards of trustees, eliminate academic tenure and create a new American history/government graduation requirement. For those classes, lawmakers, rather than universities or their faculty, would determine the content and the weight of the final exam on overall course grades. “If enacted, we believe that these measures will further damage the reputation of UNC and the state of North Carolina and will likely bring critical scrutiny from accrediting agencies that know undue interference in university affairs when they see it,” faculty members wrote in the letter. As Newsline reported, House Bill 715 also would make a series of other higher education-related changes. The report would go to the UNC Board of Governors or State Board of Community Colleges. It would require descriptions of the research, the subject area of study, an explanation of all funds used in the research and the costs and benefits of that research. It would also require “recommendations to increase instructional time for students and faculty at each postsecondary educational institution.” After a similar review mandated by the General Assembly in 2015, the UNC Board of Governors voted to close three academic centers with which its politically appointed members disagreed: The Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity at UNC-Chapel Hill; the Center for Biodiversity at East Carolina University; and the Institute for Civic Engagement and Social Change at NC Central University. The open letter makes reference to this period, which was explored last year in an investigation and report by the American Association of University Professors. The AAUP warned that the university could be further harmed should the legislature and its political appointees continue to expand their powers and influence into areas usually governed at the faculty and campus administration levels. “Instead of heeding this warning, our leaders continue to disregard campus autonomy, attack the expertise and independence of world-class faculty, and seek to force students’ educations into pre-approved ideological containers,” the letter reads. “We must protect the principles of academic freedom and shared governance which have long made UNC a leader in public education.” Democratic lawmakers have complained for years that nominees they put forward are never even considered when the state House and Senate vote on appointments. They’ve also complained about a lack of racial, gender and political diversity on the board, which went years without a single registered Democrat after GOP lawmakers won a majority and took control of the process. With its latest appointments, the board has just two registered Democrats, both with close ties to Republican leadership. Under a bill filed in April by GOP lawmakers, the leaders of the majority party in the legislature — now Republicans — would simply make appointments to the board of governors without the formality of a vote in either chamber. In August, Newsline reported the GOP reaction to concerns about diversity on governing boards: the appointment of more former GOP lawmakers and conservative political operatives to those boards. Of particular concern to faculty, students and alumni was the legislature’s creation of a new new School of Civic Life and Leadership, described as a “conservative center” from its earliest conceptions and more recently as a means of “leveling the playing field” on a campus where conservatives believe liberal views are overrepresented. The school was a priority for the General Assembly’s Republican majority, which made it clear it wants the school fast-tracked. The state budget provided an initial $2 million allocation in each of the next two fiscal years to establish the school and mandates the hiring of between 10 and 20 tenured or tenure-track faculty from outside the university. Faculty leaders have told NC Newsline it’s unprecedented for the General Assembly to directly mandate the creation and details of a new school through the budget process and point to understaffing and hiring freezes elsewhere at the university. If the initial state funding isn’t enough to establish the school and hire mandated faculty, the budget item makes clear, the university will expend the money to do so. Even faculty and administrators directly involved in creating and staffing the new school said they had concerns about the legislature prescribing its specifics and mandating how many faculty members, from where they would come and under what terms they would be hired. Concern over the political direction of the university system and its campuses had its costs in 2023. In February, the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Journalism announced it would relocate from UNC-Chapel Hill to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. The society, named for the pioneering Black investigative journalist, is dedicated to increasing and retaining reporters and editors of color in the field of investigative reporting and promoting diverse voices in news organizations. Concern over unprecedented legislation, political overreach ‘Diversity’, ‘equity’, ‘inclusion’, ‘accessibility’, ‘racism’, ‘anti-racism’, ‘anti-racist’, ‘oppression’, ‘internalized oppression’, ‘systemic racism’, ‘sexism’, ‘gender’, ‘LGBTQ+’, ‘white supremacy’, ‘unconscious bias’, ‘bias’, ‘microaggressions’, ‘critical race theory’, ‘intersectionality’, or ‘social justice.’” “When you look at it [a list of terms like the one requested from the UNC System], you can see that they can cherry pick — they can look for the Blacks, the gays, whoever,” said William Sturkey, a UNC-Chapel Hill history professor who specializes in post-1865 U.S. history and the history of race in the American South. “It’s just taking the playbook from a number of other states. This happens in American life, and especially happens with regard to the history of race in this country.” “The Jim Crow laws of the early 20th century were states emulating each other,” Sturkey said. “Louisiana passed some law about street cars and Mississippi said, ‘You know what? That’s a great idea. We want to do that too.’ It’s the same exact thing happening, without much thought I think to the unique situations in each state.” In June, conflict over diversity efforts on campuses were given a national spotlight when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that race could not be used as a factor in admissions at UNC-Chapel Hill and Harvard University. Students, faculty members, and some campus leaders lamented the decision while conservative appointees on the UNC System Board of Governors and campus level boards of trustees declared the decision proof the UNC-Chapel Hill should not have spent years defending its policy, which is common at both public and private universities and colleges. From Newsline’s story: Kotis has for years pushed for policies and statements that would oppose consideration of race in admissions and employment with the university system and its individual campuses. “I’ve never believed you can end discrimination with discrimination,” Kotis said. “And I don’t believe in quotas. I don’t think you should have two seats on an airplane for this group, two seats for this group and five seats for that group. I mean, that’s apartheid. It just doesn’t make any sense to have quotas. You cannot judge people based on the color of their skin, their gender or their religion. It doesn’t make sense.” Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat and UNC-Chapel Hill alumnus, strongly criticized the decision. “This decision undermines decades of progress made across the country to reduce systemic discrimination and promote diversity on campuses which is an important part of a quality education,” Cooper said in a statement. “Campus leaders will now have to work even harder to ensure that North Carolinians of all backgrounds are represented in higher education and to ensure strong, diverse student bodies at our colleges and universities to train the next generation of leaders for North Carolina and the nation.” UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz was taken to task by the UNC System Board of Governors for saying the decision was not what his administration had hoped. Conservative political appointees on the board questioned not just whether Guskiewicz would abide by the decision but whether he philosophically agreed with it, questioning whether a plan to cover tuition and fees for students whose families make less than $80,000 a year was a reaction to the decision. By the end of the year, Guskiewicz, who regularly clashed with members of the system’s governing board and his own campus’ board of trustees, would step down to become president of Michigan State University. That university’s board of trustees would praise the tuition plan for which he’d been criticized in North Carolina and his commitment to DEI work. 2) Concern over unprecedented legislation, political overreach By April, the system and its campuses faced a raft of GOP-sponsored bills that sought to fundamentally change higher education in the state. Faculty members pushed back, issuing open letters decrying legislation that would fundamentally change the system and its universities and characterizing it as “a war on higher education in our state.” From Newsline’s story: The letter, published in The Daily Tar Heel and reproduced below in its entirety, makes the case against House Bill 715and House Bill 96, which would expand the power of politically appointed boards of trustees, eliminate academic tenure and create a new American history/government graduation requirement. For those classes, lawmakers, rather than universities or their faculty, would determine the content and the weight of the final exam on overall course grades. “If enacted, we believe that these measures will further damage the reputation of UNC and the state of North Carolina and will likely bring critical scrutiny from accrediting agencies that know undue interference in university affairs when they see it,” faculty members wrote in the letter. As Newsline reported, House Bill 715 also would make a series of other higher education-related changes. The report would go to the UNC Board of Governors or State Board of Community Colleges. It would require descriptions of the research, the subject area of study, an explanation of all funds used in the research and the costs and benefits of that research. It would also require “recommendations to increase instructional time for students and faculty at each postsecondary educational institution.” After a similar review mandated by the General Assembly in 2015, the UNC Board of Governors voted to close three academic centers with which its politically appointed members disagreed: The Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity at UNC-Chapel Hill; the Center for Biodiversity at East Carolina University; and the Institute for Civic Engagement and Social Change at NC Central University. The open letter makes reference to this period, which was explored last year in an investigation and report by the American Association of University Professors. The AAUP warned that the university could be further harmed should the legislature and its political appointees continue to expand their powers and influence into areas usually governed at the faculty and campus administration levels. “Instead of heeding this warning, our leaders continue to disregard campus autonomy, attack the expertise and independence of world-class faculty, and seek to force students’ educations into pre-approved ideological containers,” the letter reads. “We must protect the principles of academic freedom and shared governance which have long made UNC a leader in public education.” Democratic lawmakers have complained for years that nominees they put forward are never even considered when the state House and Senate vote on appointments. They’ve also complained about a lack of racial, gender and political diversity on the board, which went years without a single registered Democrat after GOP lawmakers won a majority and took control of the process. With its latest appointments, the board has just two registered Democrats, both with close ties to Republican leadership. Under a bill filed in April by GOP lawmakers, the leaders of the majority party in the legislature — now Republicans — would simply make appointments to the board of governors without the formality of a vote in either chamber. In August, Newsline reported the GOP reaction to concerns about diversity on governing boards: the appointment of more former GOP lawmakers and conservative political operatives to those boards. Of particular concern to faculty, students and alumni was the legislature’s creation of a new new School of Civic Life and Leadership, described as a “conservative center” from its earliest conceptions and more recently as a means of “leveling the playing field” on a campus where conservatives believe liberal views are overrepresented. The school was a priority for the General Assembly’s Republican majority, which made it clear it wants the school fast-tracked. The state budget provided an initial $2 million allocation in each of the next two fiscal years to establish the school and mandates the hiring of between 10 and 20 tenured or tenure-track faculty from outside the university. Faculty leaders have told NC Newsline it’s unprecedented for the General Assembly to directly mandate the creation and details of a new school through the budget process and point to understaffing and hiring freezes elsewhere at the university. If the initial state funding isn’t enough to establish the school and hire mandated faculty, the budget item makes clear, the university will expend the money to do so. Even faculty and administrators directly involved in creating and staffing the new school said they had concerns about the legislature prescribing its specifics and mandating how many faculty members, from where they would come and under what terms they would be hired. Concern over the political direction of the university system and its campuses had its costs in 2023. In February, the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Journalism announced it would relocate from UNC-Chapel Hill to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. The society, named for the pioneering Black investigative journalist, is dedicated to increasing and retaining reporters and editors of color in the field of investigative reporting and promoting diverse voices in news organizations. The move came after the controversy over the university’s board of trustees denying one of the society’s founders, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, a vote on tenure after the university courted her to join its faculty. The story, first reported by Newsline, generated international headlines. It spotlighted concern over political overreach and conflict between campus administrators, faculty and political appointees. Intense pressure from students, faculty, staff and alumni as well as some of the top names in journalism from around the country, forced a tenure vote on the university’s board of trustees. Though the board ultimately offered her tenure, Hannah-Jones decided instead to take a position at Howard University. There she created the new Center for Democracy and Journalism at one of the nation’s most prestigious Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The university reached a settlement with Hannah-Jones last year, but the society spent much of the year struggling to get UNC-Chapel Hill to transfer its holdings — nearly $4 million — to its new home at Morehouse. As Newsline reported in June, the society had to cancel a planned programming and a successful internship for student journalists as it waited for Carolina to transfer its funds. 3) Shifting leadership across N.C. higher education UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz’s recent decision to leave Carolina for Michigan State University made the biggest headlines of any system leadership change in 2023. Members of the campus board of trustees told Newsline they were blindsided by the news when MSU student paper The State News first reported Guskiewicz was a finalist for the presidency at that university. UNC System President Peter Hans swiftly appointed Lee Roberts, a member of the system board of governors with no leadership experience in higher education, as an interim chancellor. The move led many to question whether a coming national search process would matter, or whether Roberts, a politically connected former budget director under GOP governor Pat McCrory, will ultimately be selected as permanent chancellor. But leadership shifts in higher education went well beyond Chapel Hill in 20223. In April, the North Carolina Community College Board chose a new president as Republican legislative leaders moved to require the General Assembly to approve the community college system’s top leader. The board chose Jeff Cox, then president of Wilkes Community College, to lead the system. The UNC System Board of Governors also appointed Kimberly van Noort as the new chancellor of UNC-Asheville in November. She had served as interim chancellor for most of 2023. In the six years before she was chosen as interim provost at UNC-Asheville, van Noort held several positions within the UNC System, including senior vice president for academic affairs. Before her work with the UNC System she spent 20 years as a faculty member and leader at the University of Texas at Arlington, where she taught French and served as associate vice provost for undergraduate studies, director of University College and associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Liberal Arts. The UNC-Asheville chancellor search was the first conducted under a change to UNC System policy adopted in May. Under the new policy, the UNC system president can no longer unilaterally choose finalists to advance to the system’s board of governors for a final vote. But the president still wields a great deal of power in the process. In consultation with the chair of a campus board of trustees, they choose the members of the search advisory committees. The committees must include representatives of the faculty, staff, students and community. The search committees must now also include members of the UNC System Board of Governors, who were previously prohibited from serving on them. In turn, the advisory committee forwards candidates to the board of trustees. And it submits three finalists to the system president, who chooses one nominee to present to the system’s board of governors. That board holds a final vote on the hire. Searches under the new process are now also under way at Winston-Salem State University and N.C. A&T University, where Harold Martin announced he would step down this year after 15 years at the helm of the nation’s largest historically black college or university (HBCU). Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. 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