Sometimes staying neutral creates more anger than if you chose a side.
All colleges in the University of North Carolina System were given a deadline to share their compliance plans to the new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policy created by the UNC Board of Governors on Sept. 1.
On May 23, the UNC Board of Governors voted 22 to 2 to repeal its DEI policy from 2019 and replace it with the “Equality Within the University of North Carolina” policy.
The DEI policy was designed to “advance diversity and foster an inclusive environment that engages, respects, and values all members of the university community and to ensure such efforts are carried out in an effective manner.”
The new policy will make universities in North Carolina focus more on “institutional neutrality and nondiscrimination.”
“Our public universities must take a stance of principled neutrality on matters of political controversy … it is not the job of the university to decide all the complex and multi-dimensional questions of how to balance and interpret identity,” said Peter Hans, the UNC System President. “This policy will preserve the university’s role as a trusted venue for that vital debate.”
According to a Best Colleges article, the vote took four minutes with no discussion or questions.
Pearl Burris-Floyd, a Black UNC Board of Governors member, voted yes on the repeal. She does not think that services that help minority students will disappear and she assures minority students that the board has not “turned their backs on them.”
On June 28, the UNC System released a document that gave institutions guidance about changing with the new DEI Policy. The document calls for institutions to stop “endorsing a position or opining on a matter of contemporary political debate or social action” and to “focus more on student success.”
After June 28, UNC schools made changes to the new DEI policy, according to a WUNC article.
Most UNC colleges did the same thing, close their DEI offices and either change the position of their Chief Diversity Officer or close the position.
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte had three DEI offices, all of which closed. North Carolina State University renamed its office to the ‘Office of Equal Opportunity” and suspended all DEI training for jobs around their campus.
Lots of people who reacted negatively to the DEI policy thought that the change in the DEI policy would make people lose interest in applying to UNC System colleges, as they wouldn’t be getting the representation they might want at other schools.
Students at WCU share this concern as well. Nakayla Clohè, the president of the Black Student Union, believes that WCU will lose a lot of minority students because of this new change in the DEI policy.
“It’s mainly white students here, so we don’t have the opportunity to support minority students here, which will make a lot of minority students not come here,” Clohè said.
Another big change that is happening all over the country is the loss of funding to DEI initiatives in colleges in the UNC System.
Expecting DEI to be cut off, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill redirected $2.3 million from DEI programs toward public safety measures like campus police.
WCU’s senior media relations coordinator, Julia Duvall released a statement saying that no employees have “been separated” because of the new policy. However, WCU hasn’t had a permanent Chief Diversity Officer since 2023.
“Full information about the policy will be available after the September UNC Board of Governors meeting,” Duvall said in a statement.
WCU students have had negative reactions and feel like this is just the beginning.
“I feel like losing more of that representation is always another risk factor, because it seems like we’re always backtracking instead of getting more diverse, and we’re taking away that stuff,” said Mari Flowers, a member of BSU.
Flowers is a sophomore at WCU, and he feels that less representation within our school will lead to the downsizing of BSU as a group.
Organizations across the school are planning to protest. Clohè started a new club called The Roundtable, and at the first meeting members of the Roundtable talked a lot about the DEI policy ban.
At The Roundtable, Asha Asha, a senior and co-founder of the Global Black Studies organization, talked about many different groups in the UNC system coming together and working together.
“UNCW (University of North Carolina at Wilmington) is a part of a coalition of other schools that have been affected by this,” Asha said at the meeting. “I think this is a great opportunity for us to expand and get support at a state level.”
These groups have big things planned and they are working together to repeat the events that led to the first DEI policy.
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2018, in the middle of a march, someone yelled out a racial slur at people marching and told them to “go home” according to a news story from WLOS.
After there were no repercussions or investigations of who said it, students at WCU started Whee Matter, which was an initiative that led protests and other marches against discrimination. These protests eventually led to the passing of the DEI policy in 2019.
Clohè and other members of the student government use this as an example that when they fight for something they believe in, it has the possibility of happening. Clohè has a message for anybody who feels like they will struggle with this in these upcoming years.
“Just keep your head strong and continue to fight,” Clohè said. “No matter if it gets better or worse, continue to fight, especially around [WCU].”
