Lessons Learned from UNC’s April Fool’s Fiasco

 

By: Mark Zimmerman

June 15, 2026

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Last April, the Daily Tar Heel, an independent student-run newspaper, and a campus student comedy group published satires that some students found offensive. In response to student complaints, a senior administration official issued a statement on behalf of the University that condemned the satires and criticized the students involved. In doing so, he broke policies protecting free speech and requiring the administration to refrain from taking sides on controversial issues. Later, the University retracted his statement. Now that the dust has settled, a look back at the controversy offers some lessons for the future.

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1. Policies only matter if they are observed. We probably won’t ever know why the administrator so blatantly violated University policies on free speech and institutional neutrality. A recent hire, he may not have been aware of or didn’t understand them. Whatever the case, it’s apparent that UNC needs to better train its staff on what its policies require, why they are in place and what actions are permissible or impermissible under them.​

2. Universities should be Switzerland. Debate on campus will only thrive if the administration refrains from being a participant or a referee. It must remain an observer lest its hegemony influence the deliberations. Institutional neutrality has an ancillary benefit; it immunizes the University from becoming embroiled in controversies. That should provide welcome relief to besieged administrators.​

3. Student journalism needs adult defenders. The Daily Tar Heel started this year with an excellent issue entirely devoted to campus free speech. It ended it having to abandon those principles. In the wake of the vitriol from student groups which the University inflamed, the editorial staff reportedly received death threats and employment jeopardy. They quickly chose to capitulate, pulling the parodies and issuing an apology. Where were the professional members of the newspaper’s board of directors when the students really needed them? Why didn’t they, and, for that matter, the UNC School of Journalism, step into the breach and defend the Daily Tar Heel? What happened to what was once inviolable, the sanctity of a free press? Shamefully, the student journalists were abandoned to the mob.​

4. Stop coddling students. A free speech environment means students will be exposed to ideas with which they disagree and may sometimes find hurtful. At college, and in life, students should expect to be offended. They need to learn how to challenge offensive speech through civil discourse. They certainly shouldn’t be protected from hearing it. Ironically, this administrator’s responsibility is to empower student success. Reinforcing a culture of victimization is a prescription for failure instead. Janet Napolitano, when she was president of the University of California, put it this way: “The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas.”​

5. Students need to be educated on satire. While most students have not been exposed to Jonathan Swift and his literary successors, they have grown up with Saturday Night Live. Yet they display a lack of understanding of or tolerance for irony, parody, hyperbole or understatement. Most of today’s successful comedians avoid college performances because they become flashpoints for controversy. UNC missed an important teaching moment by failing to educate the University community about how satire is a powerful tool for change.​

6. It’s right to admit you are wrong. Too often, leaders and institutions are unwilling to acknowledge mistakes. Conceding errors is not only the correct thing to do; it also goes a long way to putting a problem behind you. In this case, it took the University a week and a lot of outside pressure before it issued a retraction of the administrator’s statement and underscored its support for free speech on campus. While it should have gone further and apologized to the students and organizations that were unjustly criticized, disavowing the statement was a welcome step. It now needs to find ways of repairing the damage inflicted on the campus free speech culture.​

7. Free speech will always need defending. Thomas Jefferson warned the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. There will always be people who seek to suppress speech they do not like. Free speech means speech for all, even speech with which we disagree. Our mission is to defend that principle at UNC.

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Mistakes are unfortunate, but learning from them can make one better and prevent future errors. Let’s hope this controversy isn’t squandered and serves to motivate UNC to be more committed to free expression and campus debate.

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Mark Zimmerman is the Executive Director of the UNC Alumni Free Speech Alliance.