UNC & Local News

In July of 2020, UNC-Chapel Hill’s chancellor sent an email to the university’s leadership cabinets requesting responses to three questions regarding “structural racism.” Through public records requests, the Martin Center obtained a copy of the many responses submitted over the following days by Chapel Hill’s academic and administrative units. Our previous article on this subject introduced the chancellor’s DEI questionnaire and examined some of the more extreme proposals supplied by respondents. Below, we look in greater detail at the “solutions” proposed by Chapel Hill’s various divisions and schools.

Click the link below to read full article:

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2023/08/chapel-hills-dei-obsession-was-mandated-at-the-top-part-ii/

This session, the North Carolina legislature has taken aim at Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) trainings on UNC-System campuses. On March 14th, Senate Majority Staff Director Derrick Welch sent a letter to the UNC System requesting a list of all employee trainings on that topic from 2023 and the previous three years.

Since DEI in higher ed is a matter of continuing interest for the Martin Center, we promptly sent public-records requests to the UNC System and its 16 constituent institutions, requesting all responses sent to Welch and the legislature.

Click Link Below to Read Full Article:

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2023/07/how-extensive-is-dei-training-in-the-unc-system/

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In the past several years, the Martin Center has exposed and reported on numerous diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at UNC-Chapel Hill. Since late 2021, we have uncovered DEI plans that pose significant threats to academic freedom and free speech in at least three schools.

Click the link below to read the full article:

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2023/07/chapel-hills-dei-obsession-was-mandated-at-the-top/

How many hundreds, thousands or hundreds of thousands of American citizens have been “canceled,” fired or not re-hired in the wake of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and far-left attacks on free speech?

If it is only one, it is one too many. Compelled speech as well as censored speech defeats the whole purpose of free and open inquiry on college campuses.

To read the full article click the link below:

https://nsjonline.com/article/2023/06/hill-duke-university-free-speech-and-cancel-culture/

In January 2023, UNC-Chapel Hill launched its “DEI Strategic Plan” for the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS). The DEI Strategic Plan is an offshoot of Chief Diversity Officer Leah Cox’s “Build Our Community Together” initiative, itself part of a 2020 program entitled “Carolina Next.”

That initiative outlines plans to align admissions, hiring, and retention policies with administrators’ diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. Objectives include “​​prioritiz[ing] diversity, equity, and inclusion in teaching, research and service, and in hiring, evaluation, retention and promotion of under-represented faculty and staff.” This is in addition to “explor[ing] innovative approaches to admissions” focused on DEI.

Click Below To Read Full Article:

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2023/06/chapel-hills-latest-dei-push/

The roots of cancel culture first took hold on college campuses, where outspoken pockets of angry students began shouting down teachers and classmates who dared to voice opposing viewpoints. Hundreds of cases of retaliation have since been reported.

But today, the news isn’t all bad. Change is taking place on the very college and university campuses where cancel culture first bloomed. North Carolina’s very own UNC Chapel Hill should be lauded for stepping into the fray in support of free speech.

Click here to read the full article:

https://www.carolinajournal.com/opinion/cancel-culture-is-destroying-free-speech-unc-is-fighting-back/

The University of North Carolina (UNC) medical school is disbanding its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) task force without implementing its recommendations, just months after banning DEI statements from admission, hiring, promotion and tenure.

Click the link below to read the full article:

https://www.foxnews.com/media/university-of-north-carolina-med-school-renounces-its-own-dei-framework

An historic battle is waging over the future of higher education in the U.S. And the stakes couldn’t be higher. The presenting issues are critical social justice theory and freedom of speech. Back in the early 1980s, Jesse Jackson and Stanford University student protestors raised a few eyebrows when they chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go,” though many folks just shrugged it off as juvenile exuberance. Well, 40 years later, no one’s shrugging it off. Jackson’s catchy little chant is now the relentless drumbeat of mainstream academia.

Click the link below to read the full article:

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2023/05/undoing-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-requires-alumni-effort/

The Prohibit Compelled Speech/Higher Ed Act, House Bill 607, sits in the Senate Rules Committee this week, after passing the House earlier this month. It seeks to extend and codify protections from compelled speech for students and college applicants in North Carolina.

Click the link below to read the full article:

https://www.carolinajournal.com/compelled-speech-would-be-banned-on-nc-college-campuses-in-house-bill/

In a victory for academic freedom, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced its decision to not implement recommendations made by the School of Medicine’s Task Force to Integrate Social Justice into the Curriculum that would condition tenure and promotion on faculty commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Click link below to read full article:

https://www.thefire.org/news/victory-unc-chapel-hill-rejects-task-force-recommendation-shows-why-its-green-light-school

Free-speech protections are on the rise in the UNC System. Late last year, UNC-Chapel Hill’s Board of Trustees and Faculty Council adopted free-speech resolutions, with the latter signing on to the speech-friendly Chicago Principles, as well. More recently, two UNC-System institutions have joined the flagship in publicly committing to protecting First Amendment rights on campus.

To read full article click link below:

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2023/05/speech-protections-are-spreading-across-the-unc-system/

The Martin Center has often reported on the damage being done in colleges and universities under the guise of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Now, another organization, Color Us United (CUU), is doing the same for the UNC School of Medicine (UNCSM).

Click Link Below to Read Full Article:

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2023/02/a-new-anti-dei-petition-for-unc-medical-school/

For much of the last century, Democrats controlled North Carolina.

Since 2010, however, voters bestowed that power on Republicans, who have appointed conservatives like me to govern the UNC system.

Democrats have made political hay from bashing our leadership. Look beyond the bad-mouthing, though, and you’ll see what’s motivating them: They’re not in charge any more, and it’s killing them.

Click Link Below to Read Full Article:

https://nsjonline.com/article/2023/04/kotis-the-hypocrisy-of-the-coalition-for-carolina/

Click Below to Read the Meeting Notes:

https://bot.unc.edu/meeting-reports/

The scariest professor I had in college at UNC was Dr. Daniels.

He taught French 40 ― existential literature. I hated it.

Everyone else loved him. He had a reputation for being lenient in grading ― if a student went to his office to chat with him 3-4 times during the semester, they were pretty much guaranteed to get an A.

Click Below to Read the Full Article:

https://nsjonline.com/article/2023/03/hill-college-students-are-crippled-by-faculty-patronizing-them/

CHAPEL HILL — At a March 22 meeting of the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees (UNC BOT), a resolution was approved that supports a recent policy change to curb “compelled speech.”

UNC BOT member and Strategic Initiatives Committee Chair Perrin Jones introduced and read the resolution supporting the amendment of UNC Policy Section 300.5.1. The approved policy revision in that section restricts “vague or ideologically motivated statement policies of any kind across UNC campuses” in admissions, employment and professional advancement.

Click Below to Read Full Article:

https://nsjonline.com/article/2023/03/unc-board-of-trustees-approves-resolution-in-support-of-policy-curbing-compelled-speech/

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/

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

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/