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DEI budget cuts create uncertain future for students and faculty

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Board Member Sonja Phillips Nichols raises her hand in opposition to a policy defunding DEI at the May 23, 2024 Board of Governers meeting in Raleigh, NC.

As UNC navigates the aftermath of DEI budget cuts and position realignments across the UNC System, students and faculty remain attentive to the future of inclusion efforts on campus. 

Alexandra Versace, a UNC senior and co-director of the Department of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the Executive Branch of University Student Government, said the branch is currently working on holding events and extending resources to educate students about the policy. 

Versace said that she wants the University to embrace DEI, starting with an improved education on what such efforts entail and tackling misinformation that surrounds the issue. 

“DEI is not black and white. It’s not political where it’s red versus blue. It’s much more than that,” she said.  

Candice Merritt, an assistant professor in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department, said DEI should be thought about through an intersectional lens. She said that talking about race is “very much dependent on and works in concert with gender.”

“The women's movement was right along with civil rights, which was right along with gay rights," Merritt said. "Those histories are very much intertwined in Black feminist study.”

She said that conversations around the new policy have been present in the department, and that there is a potential sense of worry around the department’s allocation of resources. 

“Women’s and gender studies is a field that was born out of agitating for change, for social change and social justice,” she said. “So it’s a field that’s not a guaranteed field in the institution, in my experience.”

Merritt said the University environment is a unique place for individuals from different backgrounds to interact, saying that she hopes to see continued support for ethnic studies programs and other DEI initiatives that give voices to underrepresented groups on campus. 

She said the programs are important because they help ask complex questions in the classroom and discuss difficult histories across the University.

Potential legal challenge

Jerry Wilson, director of policy and advocacy at the Center for Racial Equity in Education, located in Charlotte,  said that there are grounds to challenge the new policy because of its potential to create a “hostile environment for people of color on campus and staff persons in particular.” 

Specifically, Wilson acknowledged the Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education as a potentially interested party to challenge new policy.

A CREED summer intern annotated the UNC System's guidance regarding new Equality Policy, raising concerns around subjective and contradictory language.

On a PDF copy of the policy that Wilson shared with The Daily Tar Heel, the intern highlighted the statement, "efforts do not include statements or endorsements of ideology, politics, or social commentary," writing in the margins that "the policy of 'institutional neutrality' is itself an ideology driven by political aims."

"Universities produce knowledge, and knowledge should change society," the intern wrote.

Wilson said that the lack of clear guidance in the new policy could lead to universities potentially overreaching in restricting support for students out of fear of non-compliance.  

He said that legally, the greater concern should be the potential creation of a hostile environment for marginalized students, rather than the risk of violating the policy itself, which he said was likely to face legal challenges and could ultimately be amended.

Wilson said that universities should prioritize supporting and engaging with students on campus rather than isolating those they are meant to serve and educate. 

“Institutional neutrality does not lead to equal access to educational opportunity when you have a history and a legacy of racial discrimination,” he said. “Doing nothing will not lead to equality of opportunity. Doing nothing will result in that legacy of discrimination and harassment and racism continuing to marginalize students who have been historically marginalized.”

The decision to repeal DEI policy was not unanimous. UNC Board of Governors members Joel Ford and Sonja Phillips Nichols voted against the repeal.

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Ford and Nichols did not respond to requests for comments.

@calebherrera_

@dailytarheel | university@dailytarheel.com