According to Palm, these decisions are usually made long before the BOT gets to approve them.
“In my experience, the only involvement of the Board of Governors or Board of Trustees has been to rubber stamp tenure decisions that have been made by the people who are qualified to review cases for tenure and promotion,” Palm said. “In the case of faculty, that’s other faculty.”
In the summer of 2021, the BOT failed to grant tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Pulitzer prize-winning writer for The New York Times Magazine and investigative journalist known for her coverage of civil rights.
The Hussman School of Journalism and Media faculty issued a statement disapproving of the failure to grant Hannah-Jones tenure. The Romance Studies and Geography and Environment departments also wrote statements to the BOT condemning their inaction.
“The appalling treatment of one of our nation’s most-decorated journalists by her own alma mater was humiliating, inappropriate, and unjust,” the Hussman faculty statement read. “We will be frank: It was racist.”
Hannah-Jones sparked backlash from conservative groups for her work on “The 1619 Project” for The New York Times Magazine, named for the year slavery began in the U.S. colonies.
Jay Smith, distinguished professor of history and president of the North Carolina AAUP conference, said the BOT had a political agenda and intervened in a dishonest process. He also said that it was a huge loss for the University.
“Our students suffered because boards got meddlesome in ways that were, if not unprecedented, nearly so, and just unhelpful and disrespectful of campus processes,” Smith said.
Later that year, Chris Clemens, astronomy professor and outspoken conservative, was appointed as UNC’s newest Provost.
The BOT approved Clemens’ position in a closed session, voting on “action items,” which did not name him or the provost position. When critics questioned if the process violated open meetings law, the board hosted an emergency meeting and approved Clemens again in a 12-1 vote. Then-Student Body President Lamar Richards was the only abstaining vote.
Prior to his appointment, then-chair of the faculty Mimi Chapman wrote an Op-Ed published in The Daily Tar Heel in which she claimed Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz was “under significant pressure to make a particular choice.” She did not name Clemens in the Op-Ed.
“Based on the information that is being relayed to me by multiple sources,” Chapman wrote. “Our trustees and the UNC System are dictating his choices to the point that he really has none to make.”
To get the day's news and headlines in your inbox each morning, sign up for our email newsletters.
The University’s public image
In 1792, the University's first BOT voted on where to build UNC-Chapel Hill after it was chartered under the U.S. Constitution. Since then, the BOT has played a role in shaping the direction of the University and creating what board chair John Preyer said is a path of “excellence.”
“We want to continue the trajectory that UNC is on where it is the leading public university in the world,” Preyer said. “And I think that that weighs on all the board members: that we have a truly exceptional place, and we must continue to do what’s needed to keep it exceptional.”
Many building names on UNC's campus honor promoters of white supremacy, slaveholders or men with Confederate ties. According to the policy on naming University facilities and units, to rename a building, the request must be submitted to the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Naming University Facilities and Units which is then approved by the BOT.
In June 2020, the BOT voted to end the University’s 16-year moratorium on renaming campus buildings. In July, they voted 11-2 to change the names of four buildings that honored men who promoted white supremacy.
Preyer was one of the two trustees who voted no, saying he thought the decision was being rushed. Before the votes, Preyer presented a motion to keep the buildings’ names to honor the namesake’s descendants and their contributions to the University.
He also suggested a day of forgiveness for the namesakes.
“We now are going to vote in judgement of these people, and I think that’s best left to a higher authority,” Preyer said at the meeting. “But what we can do is forgive them, and I would urge everybody to consider that.”
Three years later, the U.S. Supreme Court declared UNC-Chapel Hill’s race-conscious admissions practices unconstitutional, effectively outlawing affirmative action nationwide. The lawsuit began in 2014, when Students for Fair Admissions accused the University of discriminating against white and Asian students. Preyer called it a “moment of humility.”
“For nine years, we’ve spent in the neighborhood of $35 million to lose a high-profile case,” Preyer said. “Why did we do that?”
Preyer did not respond to requests for comment by the time for publication.
About a month after the Supreme Court decision, the BOT passed a resolution to apply the decision to its hiring and admissions processes. Trustee Ralph Meekins Sr. told the BOT that the action was too hasty, and went "well beyond" what was legally required of them to comply with the court decision.
Meekins later said that his concern stemmed from how the BOT resolution applied to the hiring of faculty and contractors.
“With my legal background, I’m familiar with the fact that there are still laws that we have to comply with with respect to minority hirings and contracting,” said Meekins. “We didn’t need to beat the Supreme Court to the punch.”
Protests on campus
Demonstrations against Silent Sam, a Confederate monument, date back to the 1960s.
The monument was torn down by protesters in August 2018. After its forced removal, the decision on what to do with the statue, and for the campus community, was left to the administration.
In December 2018, the BOT proposed $5.3 million to house Silent Sam in a new campus museum with an estimated annual operating budget of $800,000. The plan didn’t happen.
Protesters wanted to condemn white supremacy and honor victims of racial violence. The Faculty Council called for a permanent removal of the statue.
“Returning [it] to the UNC-Chapel Hill campus would reaffirm the values of white supremacy that motivated its original installation,” the Faculty resolution said.
In January 2019, former Chancellor Carol L. Folt announced her resignation and ordered the removal of Silent Sam's remaining pedestal and commemorative plaque. Three months earlier, she had issued an apology for the University's role in the “profound injustices of slavery.”
“Had we been left alone to handle the Sam issue on our own, I think the statue would have been removed,” Smith said. “Everybody would have been happy with that, and we would probably still have Carol Folt as our chancellor.”
The Board responded to protesters' demands again when students demonstrated for Palestine last fall. Emails obtained by The Daily Tar Heel showed Board members raising concerns about these protests, specifically for students' use of controversial imagery and chanting in Arabic.
UNC Students for Justice in Palestine and other protesters began the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on Polk Place in April 2024. SJP demanded the University divest from Israel, be transparent on its investments and work with students, faculty and staff to ensure compliance.
The encampment remained active until April 30, when it was disbanded by law enforcement following a letter from Clemens and then-interim Chancellor Lee Roberts. Preyer criticized the Town of Chapel Hill for not supporting UNC with law enforcement at the protest, saying it was outrageous. He also said Roberts' actions in putting the U.S. flag back up was commendable, despite the fact that many community members raised concerns about the police's use of force on April 30.
"I think all of us that have served on the Board for several years now have been hoping for this type of leadership,” said Preyer. “We're delighted to see Chancellor Roberts out there leading by example."
"Openly hostile relationship"
Former Chancellor Holden Thorp said the Trustees were important advisors to him during his term. He said he found Hans’ memos surprising.
“I never saw a situation where the president had to intervene, now twice, in writing, to tell the Trustees to mind their own business,” Thorp said.
Trustee Vinay Patel said Hans' recent memo was appropriate because of the specific context of Belichick's hiring.
"We had board members that went out of their jurisdiction, doing things we're not supposed to be doing" Patel said. "At the end of the day, we have a call, we have a restriction on what we need to do."
Thorp said the BOG has often stopped the BOT from overstepping their roles and has substantially more power. Per the website, The Board of Governors is tasked with the planning, development and overall governance of the UNC System.
“It’s not good for the University for the two boards to be in conflict,” he said.
System-wide guidelines place the BOG over the BOT in terms of responsibility. Section 3.02 of the BOT bylaws says the BOT has powers and duties that comply with The Code of The University of North Carolina, state law, and as they are "defined and delegated by the Board of Governors."
Smith cited a statement from the AAUP and the American Association of Governing Boards in the 1960s that set a precedent that governing boards were supposed to refrain from intervening in University administration unless there was a genuine crisis. He said in recent years, that’s changed.
Because the board mostly consists of those from non-educational backgrounds, Smith wondered if they feel freer to intervene on campus. He said the divide between community members and Trustees has a state-wide impact.
“The cultural separation between campus life on one hand and the formations received by members of the Board of Trustees is one of the things driving the openly hostile relationship between the board and higher ed in North Carolina," Smith said.
enterprisedesk@dailytarheel.com
University Desk Editor Ananya Cox and Special Projects writer Twumasi Duah-Mensah contributed reporting to this story.
