Divisive or beneficial? Questions linger as UNC system looks to cut diversity programs
The leadership of North Carolina’s public university system is expected to vote this week to repeal its diversity policies, raising questions of what’s to come for thousands of minority students at the state’s 17 UNC System campuses and hundreds of professors and staff who work to promote diversity, equity and inclusion.
DEI programs in higher education are largely aimed at helping under-represented groups — particularly Black or Hispanic students, LGBTQ students and women — feel more welcome on campus, find spaces to gather and network, host cultural events or find resources for financial aid and academic counseling.
But where supporters of DEI programs see an effort to help students whose communities have long faced discrimination, critics see anti-white discrimination and an effort to push liberal political views on students. The efforts to repeal the programs come amid a broader backlash in conservative circles against affirmative action and other more recent racial justice reforms that passed after the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
DEI programs have become more popular in recent decades as companies and institutions look to embrace racial, ethnic, gender, religious and other types of diversity. The UNC System adopted its DEI policy in 2019, and similar programs saw a big boost after the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement. In recent months, however, Republican politicians across the country have pushed bills that seek to restrict or eliminate DEI programs, including in North Carolina.
At the same time, North Carolina’s population boom is being largely driven by new, non-white residents. Between 2010 and 2020 the state added more than 900,000 new residents. Less than 10% of them were white; nearly all identified as Hispanic, Asian, Black or multiracial.
And many students report wanting more exposure to cultures other than their own when they get to college. At UNC-Chapel Hill, a 2023 survey of the freshman class found that 95% said they “want to get better at leading, serving, and working with people from different backgrounds.”
The Board of Governors that runs the UNC system is scheduled to meet Thursday in Raleigh, where it plans to repeal the DEI policies for all public universities statewide. All 24 board members were hand-picked for their position by the white Republican leaders of the state legislature, and most are white Republicans themselves.
“We cannot require everyone to think the same way about race, gender, or any other challenging topic,” Randy Ramsey, a yacht dealership executive who serves as board chairman, said in a written statement. “Too often in recent years, there has been a narrowing of room for good-faith discussion on our campuses about some of the most important issues in American life. Our universities must encourage the free and open exchange of ideas, especially on difficult subjects.”
But there’s pushback from some students and staff, including UNC-Chapel Hill Student Body President Jaleah Taylor.
“As a Black student, I am very supportive of diversity, equity and inclusion programs,” she told WRAL in an interview. “I've seen the benefits of them on campus. And so I'm hoping that the Board of Governors does not vote to approve this policy, even though it's probably very likely.”
Leaders at the UNC System and its individual campuses have so far been tight-lipped about what actual effects the changes will or won’t have on each campus. None are saying which employees might be laid off, which programs might be shut down, which scholarships might be undone or which campus events might be banned — if any.
The new policy being considered to replace the existing DEI policy is vaguely worded, indicating that each individual campus could determine how to implement the new rules once they’re approved.
“Any speculation on the impact this has on specific jobs, employees and programs is premature,” said Kevin Best, a spokesman for UNC-Chapel Hill.
The new policy also doesn’t explicitly demand the firing of any employees. But it does instruct campus leaders to report back on how many jobs they eliminate once the new policy is enacted, as well as “how those savings achieved from these actions can be redirected.”
Also unclear is what impact the programs have had on campuses. WRAL sought comment from a number of people who work for or research DEI efforts — both inside and outside the university system. They either declined to comment or didn’t respond to the requests.
Millions of dollars in play
A spokesperson for the UNC System also didn’t respond to a request for comment on a list of questions — including details about which jobs, programs and student services could be affected, or how much is spent on them.
A WRAL analysis of state employment data shows 88 people employed throughout the UNC System office and its 17 campuses whose job titles include the words “diversity” or “affirmative action.” They make a combined $8.99 million in annual base salary, for an average salary of about $102,000.
But that isn’t a complete picture. Some employees of DEI offices don’t show up on that list. Furthermore, the list includes people whose jobs would likely be safe from anti-DEI changes — for example, Title IX coordinators whose jobs are mandated by federal law, who work to make sure women aren’t being discriminated against on campuses.
At UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Medicine, for instance, the director of the Office of Rural Initiatives is considered to have a job whose focus is 100% DEI-focused, according to internal reports. At the UNC School of Law, a business services coordinator’s job is considered to be 50% DEI-related. Those are just some of the jobs, at one of the 17 campuses, who work in DEI even if their titles don’t outwardly reflect it.
The UNC System office doesn’t track DEI spending across all 17 campuses. And while the individual campuses do track their DEI spending, many of the most current reports are years out of date.
But as the BOG vote looms, one campus offered a look at what the changes might look like statewide if the new rules are approved.
The UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees voted to instruct interim Chancellor Lee Roberts to redirect all of the flagship university’s funding for diversity, equity and inclusion to public safety. The trustees said they wanted to be proactive, assuming the BOG would also soon vote to repeal DEI policies.
The campus trustees — who, like the system BOG members, are mostly Republican political appointees — said cutting DEI on campus would save $2.3 million, based on a report from 2021. They’d like to divert the funds to campus police instead.
“DEI is divisive,” Dave Boliek, a UNC-Chapel Hill trustee who is also this year’s Republican Party nominee for state auditor, said during that meeting. “I don't think it's productive.”
However, it’s unclear if universities actually would be allowed to redirect DEI spending to law enforcement, as Boliek and other Chapel Hill leaders want. The systemwide policy up for a vote Thursday instructs campuses to use any savings from cutting DEI programs to fund “initiatives related to student success and wellbeing” — terms that universities often use to refer to academic and mental health counseling.
So far, Chapel Hill is the only campus to individually call for action against DEI programs. At other schools, leaders are waiting to see what happens Thursday.
“Should the policy pass, we expect to receive additional guidance from the UNC System,” said Buffie Stephens, a spokesperson for the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, when asked what the policy would mean on that campus, the third-largest in the system after Chapel Hill and N.C. State University.
Spokespeople for N.C. State, and many other system schools, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
What do DEI offices do?
There’s little direction from the UNC System on what schools need to do for DEI currently, apart from the 2019 policy that’s set to be repealed Thursday. That policy requires every school to have at least one high-level administrator focused on DEI efforts, but in general the details of how to carry out those efforts are left up to individual campus leaders.
UNC-Chapel Hill’s DEI programs have included:
- Efforts to increase diversity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses.
- A mentorship program for early-career female professors.
- The campus Male Empowerment Network and the Women of Worth Initiative.
- A website highlighting key locations associated with Black history in Chapel Hill.
- Working with the UNC School of Medicine on getting more new doctors to start their career as primary care doctors in rural North Carolina.
At N.C. State University, the DEI office runs the campus’:
- Women’s Center.
- African American Cultural Center.
- LGBTQ Pride Center.
- Multicultural Student Affairs.
The UNC system’s historically black colleges and universities have DEI programming, too. In Durham, North Carolina Central University’s DEI efforts include the campus LGBTA Resource Center and the Soaring Eagle Powwow, an event hosted by the Native American Law Students Association.
NCCU said in a written statement that school officials will work with whatever policies the UNC System puts in place. “As the university awaits the board’s final decision, NCCU stays committed to fostering a community of opportunity. We are dedicated to providing students with training and programs that help them thrive.”
If the BOG does eliminate the DEI policy during Thursday’s meeting, there are still federal laws and regulations in place mandating that universities don’t engage in discrimination, UNC System President Peter Hans said in a statement.
“The University of North Carolina will continue serving students of all backgrounds and beliefs,” Hans said. “There is broad and deep commitment to that goal, and support for the UNC System’s longstanding efforts to reflect the diversity of North Carolina.”
Compared with with North Carolina’s population at large, in the 2023-24 school year the universities had roughly equal representation of white and Black students, as well as a lot less Hispanic students and a lot more Asian students.
Not just DEI under fire
The efforts to undo DEI programs throughout the UNC System are part of a broader political backlash against racial reckonings that began during the Civil Rights movement and were further amplified in 2020 following nationwide Black Lives Matter protests.
Last year the United States Supreme Court banned affirmative action nationwide, in cases that focused specifically on Harvard University and UNC-Chapel Hill. It was the culmination of years of work by conservative activists, who saw affirmative action as discriminating against white and Asian college applicants.
State-level policy in 2023 also saw numerous other shifts on racial issues and how diversity is discussed or debated. That year the North Carolina Supreme Court majority shifted from Democratic to Republican control, and the Republican-led state legislature also gained a veto-proof supermajority that rendered Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper largely powerless.
The state Supreme Court’s new majority issued rulings last year reversing a ruling that had struck down voter photo identification laws as unconstitutional for racial discrimination, and denying claims of racial discrimination in jury selection in two criminal cases — the latter of which led the court’s only Black justice, Democrat Anita Earls, to object that the new majority “turns a blind eye to evidence of racial discrimination.”
And at the legislature, GOP leaders passed a new law banning all state government agencies, including universities, from asking current or potential employees to affirm their support for diversity in order to be hired or get a promotion. It followed outcry over a policy along those lines adopted by the UNC School of Medicine.
Multiple lawmakers said they saw such policies as being intended to keep conservatives out of state jobs.
That bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. Warren Daniel, R-Burke, said during one legislative debate that the government shouldn’t be telling people, “this is the viewpoint you should have, based on today’s version of cultural morality, which maybe differed greatly from yesterday’s version.”
“You can’t keep up sometimes,” he added.
WRAL News reporters Monica Casey and Brian Murphy contributed to this article.
