UNC & Local News

Three cheers for UNC Chapel Hill.

The public institution — paid for in large part by taxpayer dollars — has become a national leader of the anti-woke backlash in higher education. This development is as surprising as it is welcome, since many public colleges and universities are doubling down on political indoctrination and ideological discrimination.

Click here to read the full article:

https://nsjonline.com/article/2023/03/smith-unc-chapel-hill-is-emerging-as-a-national-free-speech-leader/

Where have all the adults gone?

That is one of the questions I keep wondering about wherever I look in America or the wider West these days.

We have politicians who behave like schoolchildren, teachers who live in fear of their students, and bosses and CEOs who are terrorized by their most junior employees.

When did all the adults leave the room?

Click Below to Read the Full Article:

https://nypost.com/2023/03/02/a-university-finally-stands-up-to-woke-virtue-signaling/

The University of North Carolina (UNC) moved against encroaching woke culture and voted to ban diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) statements and politically preferential hiring.

UNC voted to ban DEI statements and compelled speech from admission, hiring, promotion and tenure at its Board of Governors meeting Thursday.

Click Below to Read the Full Article:

https://www.foxnews.com/media/university-north-carolina-moves-ban-diversity-equity-inclusion-statements-anti-woke-backlash

The University of North Carolina (UNC) moved against encroaching woke culture and voted to ban diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) statements and politically preferential hiring.

UNC voted to ban DEI statements and compelled speech from admission, hiring, promotion and tenure at its Board of Governors meeting Thursday.

To Read The Full Article Click Link Below:

https://www.foxnews.com/media/university-north-carolina-moves-ban-diversity-equity-inclusion-statements-anti-woke-backlash

Our editorial on Friday about the University of North Carolina’s effort to create a new school dedicated to free inquiry and open academic discourse has caused a fuss on campus that illustrates why the new school is needed. It seems that faculty grandees are outraged that the UNC board of trustees thought such a school is necessary and didn’t even seek the faculty’s permission.

Click link below to read the full article:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/university-of-north-carolina-school-of-civic-life-and-leadership-daily-tar-heel-board-of-trustees-11675203324#

Progressive politics has dominated elite universities since before the term woke was coined. But one university is trying to revive the academic ideal of a campus as a haven for free inquiry and debate. On Thursday the University of North Carolina board of trustees voted 12-0 to create a new school committed to free expression in higher education.

Click link below to read the full article:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/university-of-north-carolina-school-of-civic-life-and-leadership-board-of-trustees-11674773696?page=1

While North Carolina is often considered a “purple state,” the composition of UNC-System campaign contributions is anything but bipartisan. OpenSecrets data indicate that campaign contributions to Democrats among UNC-System employees outweighed those to Republicans by more than 20 to 1 in the 2020 and 2022 election cycles.

Click link below to read full article:

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2022/12/unc-system-employees-really-love-democrats/

Vietnam War-inspired protests were all but gone on campuses when I started college in 1974, but the “free speech” movement they spawned was just getting started.

It’s no secret that this college-anchored free speech movement has evolved since the early 1980s, when “free speech zones” were established on campus grounds. But free speech advocates soon began to challenge them as too restrictive.

Click link below to read the full article:

https://kellyjohnston.substack.com/p/has-your-university-signed-the-chicago

There are times when “I told you so” is unpleasant to say. This is one of those occasions.

In May, the Martin Center reported on the appointment of a new dean, Raul Reis, at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism. Based on Reis’s previous work and his professed dedication to “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), the Martin Center warned that this new hire might seek to remake the school in the image of DEI. That prediction, unfortunately, appears to have come true.

Click the link below to read the full article:

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2022/12/ideological-compulsion-at-the-unc-school-of-journalism/

Washington, D.C. – Today, Reps. Greg Murphy, M.D., Virginia Foxx, Kat Cammack, Burgess Owens, and Mariannette Miller-Meeks held the second annual Congressional Campus Free Speech Roundtable in the U.S. Capitol. The event brought together leaders from the Young America’s Foundation (YAF), the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), current college students, and members of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance (AFSA) to discuss First Amendment concerns in post-secondary education.

Click the link below to read the full article:

https://gregmurphy.house.gov/media/press-releases/murphy-champions-first-amendment-rights-annual-campus-free-speech-roundtable

Frank Hill

Former UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp published “The Charade of Political Neutrality” in the Sept. 16 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education.

He tried to make the case that conservative politicians want to dictate what colleges teach and who teaches what subjects. What he and virtually all administrators and faculty fail to understand about conservatives is they couldn’t care less what any administrator or faculty says at Carolina or any other college ― as long as other faculty and students have the guaranteed freedom to say whatever they want in response without fear of reprisal, ostracism, suppression or ridicule supported by the administration. Or worse, be declined tenure as a young professor or get a failing grade as a student for not adhering to the liberal ideology imposed by their superiors.

Read More:
https://nsjonline.com/article/2022/10/hill-holden-thorp-and-the-charade-of-political-neutrality/

Mark McNeilly

On July 27, 2022, the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees passed a resolution adopting both the University of Chicago’s Free Speech Statement and its Kalven Report. Chicago’s Free Speech Statement, which guarantees free expression at the university, is well known in academia. According to the campus free speech organization FIRE, 87 universities have adopted the Statement as of July 2022. Much less well known is the Kalven Report, which focuses on institutional neutrality.

Read More:
https://heterodoxacademy.org/blog/universities-should-adopt-institutional-neutrality/

A professor at the University of North Carolina recently sent me an article on a “free speech event” held at the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy as part of the University’s 13th First Amendment Day celebration. What was striking about the free speech panel was not just that it was decidedly opposed to core free speech principles but it lacked a single panelist who spoke primarily in favor of free speech and against censorship.

Read More:
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/09/29/unc-holds-first-amendment-celebration-with-one-sided-condemnations-of-free-speech-values/

Jenna Robinson

It’s no secret that university students, once know for their brash defense of unfettered free speech, have gone rather quiet on the issue.

Read More:
https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2022/09/bias-response-teams-have-no-place-on-n-c-campuses/

28% of students say shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking on campus is never acceptable.

44% of students say they have rarely or never self-censored on campus.

37% of students say they are not worried about damaging their reputation because someone misunderstands something they have said or done.

For every one conservative student, there are roughly 3.4 liberal students.

Read More:
https://rankings.thefire.org/rank/school/university-of-north-carolina-at-chapel-hill

Jukka Savolainen

Nature Human Behavior, one of the most prestigious journals for social science research, recently published an editorial titled “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans.” Though short, the article generated tremendous pushback among academics and intellectuals concerned about the spread of social-justice ideology into science.

Read More:
https://www.city-journal.org/nature-human-behavior-editorial-is-anti-science

UNC’s Board of Trustees adopts a resolution on free expression and institutional neutrality—but the school’s academic departments remain committed to ideological coercion.

Read More:
https://www.city-journal.org/does-the-university-of-north-carolina-care-about-academic-freedom

On May 17, the University of North Carolina (UNC) System released a report on the status of “Free Expression and Constructive Dialogue” at member schools.

Key findings of the report included that “[c]ampuses do not consistently achieve an atmosphere that promotes free expression,” “[s]tudents who identify as conservative face distinctive challenges,” and “[s]tudents across the political spectrum want more opportunities to engage with those who think differently.”

https://campusreform.org/article?id=19944

The purpose of higher education in a democracy is to promote the discovery, refinement and sharing of knowledge and wisdom through free and open inquiry and debate. Censorship, dogma and intolerance have no place in our universities.

Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article264379286.html#storylink=cpy

Last week, the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees passed two important resolutions on campus viewpoint neutrality. With the addition of these protections, UNC’s free-speech policies are among the best in the nation.

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2022/08/did-you-know-unc-chapel-hill-now-has-some-of-the-best-free-speech-policies-in-the-nation/