UNC System suspends general education and major-specific DEI requirements

All general education and major-specific course requirements related to diversity, equity and inclusion taught at UNC System schools are suspended, according to a memo sent to system chancellors on Wednesday.

This change is in compliance with President Donald Trump’s Jan. 21 executive order, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” which requires the removal of DEI policies within executive departments and agencies.

According to the System memo, mandatory curricular and program requirements on topics listed in the UNC Policy Manual will also be prohibited. These topics include the idea that one race or sex is better than another, that people of certain races and sexes or certain institutions are inherently oppressed or oppressive and that race or sex is related to a person’s moral character.

The UNC System could risk losing federal funding for research, which makes up 13 percent of the System’s annual budget, if it doesn’t comply with Trump’s directive, according to the memo written by UNC System Senior Vice President for Legal Affairs & General Counsel Andrew Tripp.

“Even though some form of additional federal guidance is expected, and the law in this area remains unsettled, the risk of jeopardizing over $1.4B in critical federal research funding is simply too great to defer action,” Tripp wrote in the memo.

Within 120 days of the executive order, the Attorney General and Secretary of Education are expected to provide UNC and other institutions with additional details surrounding compliance. 

The System’s adoption of a new Equality Policy in May 2024 largely aligned the University with the executive order. However, there was no policy in place regarding the teaching of DEI topics in general education and major-specific course requirements.

All students enrolled in a DEI-related course this semester can choose to stay in that class or withdraw without penalty, according to the UNC System memo.

"Such withdrawal shall be deemed a course withdrawal with extenuating circumstances under section 400.1.5 of the UNC Policy Manual, 'Regulation Related to Fostering Undergraduate Student Success,'" the memo said.

In a Monday email to the University community referencing the system-wide memo, Chancellor Lee Roberts and Provost Chris Clemens wrote that the policy does not suspend current classes or change course content.

The University will now no longer require the "U.S. Diversity" requirement within the Making Connections curriculum, which is the general education track that students who entered UNC before the fall of 2022 must follow.

According the archived 2021-2022 course catalog, the requirement helps "students develop a greater understanding of diverse peoples and cultures within the United States and thereby enhance their ability to fulfill the obligations of Unite[d] States citizenship."

The email stated that the registrar will contact all impacted students, adding that the change "accelerates an ongoing transition from the old Making Connections to the new IDEAs in Action general education curriculum," which applies to students who entered the University after the fall of 2022.

IDEAs in Action requires all students to complete 10 Focus Capacities, including Power, Difference, & Inequality, which focuses on the histories, perspectives, politics and traditions of historically disadvantaged groups, according to the curriculum website.

"Moving forward, we will continue to study the guidance to determine the impacts under the IDEAs in Action general education curriculum," Roberts and Clemens wrote.

Kathleen Fitzgerald, a sociology professor who is teaching a course that fulfills the Power, Difference, & Inequality Focus Capacity this semester, wrote in an email to The DTH that she thinks the University has not had enough time to determine how to comply with the UNC System memo.

“Things are changing quickly,” Fitzgerald wrote.

Fitzgerald’s course, Sociology 122: Race and Ethnicity, examines race, racism, privilege, power dynamics and factors that lead to social change, according to the UNC 2024-25 academic catalog. The same course fulfills the "U.S. Diversity" requirement in the Making Connections curriculum.

Although the course fulfills an IDEAS requirement, it is one of many options that students can pick from. Fitzgerald wrote that she thinks this means her course does not count as required and is therefore in compliance with the UNC System memo.

“That is my interpretation and it could be wrong,” Fitzgerald wrote. 

African, African American and diaspora studies professor David Pier is also teaching a Power, Difference, & Inequality course this semester, and he said he has not heard anything about those courses being affected by the memo.

“I don't want to preemptively start pushing back against something that hasn't been implemented yet,” Pier said. “Lots of times we get these sort of threats, and they're negotiated somewhere far above me, in the structure, and the threat goes away eventually.”

Pier said he is also unsure how the memo will affect the courses and major curriculum within the African, African American, and diaspora studies department. However, he said that he thinks that his courses and the courses of his department, as they are now, are important and include a variety of perspectives that enrich student learning.

Karen Booth, the director of undergraduate studies within UNC’s women and gender studies department, wrote in an email to The DTH that she does not know what the memo will mean for the department’s curriculum, but that curricular matters are, according to University and accreditation organization rules, under faculty control.  

“Faculty will be working with each other to translate and respond to any directives wherever they come from,” Booth wrote. 

History professor Michelle King said she thinks it should be up to departments and faculty to dictate what their major curriculum looks like because they are the most qualified to determine what constitutes expertise in their field. 

She said that as fields advance, departments must acknowledge those changes in perspectives and experiences.

“I don't think we should take this ban on DEI to mean we cannot talk about difference,” King said.

@alice__scottt

@dailytarheel | university@dailytarheel.com