The Faculty Council meeting on Friday focused on the implications of the recent presidential election on UNC students and faculty.
Chancellor Carol Folt said emotions have been running high on campus since the election. She said faculty needs to continue to create spaces that welcome student discussion.
“We have the privileged position actually of being a place for students, who have never voted before, are here and they have a chance to think through what a contested election means no matter what side they voted,” Folt said.
Folt said she has no intentions of changing UNC policies in the wake of this election. She said the policies and enforcement of nondiscrimination and freedom of thought and expression will not be amended.
“We’re the same Chapel Hill we were before the election that we are after the election,” Folt said.
Bruce Cairns, chairperson of the faculty, said UNC and its faculty must step up as leaders in this current political climate.
“I would tell you this is not a time to be discouraged, cynical or dispossessed,” Cairns said. “This is a time for us to step up and show the world how effective and thoughtful the oldest and greatest public university in the land can address some of the most challenging problems of the day.”
UNC police chief Jeff McCracken and Derek Kemp, associate vice chancellor for campus safety and risk management, said the Department of Public Safety did not monitor students’ immigration statuses prior to the election and that policy will not change now.
Hassan Melehy, a French professor on the faculty council, asked McCracken and Kemp if DPS would arrest undocumented immigrants if North Carolina legislature passed a law similar to that in Arizona, which mandates undocumented immigrants’ presence on Arizona soil as trespassing and requires local police to arrest such individuals.
