Chapel Hill’s Latest DEI Push

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.