The University of North Carolina System’s Board of Governors issued a memorandum requiring each of the system’s 17 campuses to develop a subcommittee to evaluate the campus’s compliance with the system’s anti-diversity, equity and inclusion policy, The Assembly reported.
They have until Sept. 1 to show how they have complied with the policy, which cancelled previous DEI guidance and mandated neutrality from administrators on political and social issues. As a result of that policy, UNC campuses reported that they laid off dozens of staffers, moved 131 people to new positions, and redirected $16 million in DEI spending to student success and wellbeing programs.
According to the memo, the reviews should include briefings with chancellors about employees whose jobs were changed as a result of the DEI ban.
“These confidential reviews should compare an individual’s prior position to his or her new responsibilities, including how the employee’s performance in that role has changed, and what safeguards exist to ensure an employee’s previous responsibilities do not continue in the present role,” the memo states. “Confidential briefings from the chancellor on any disciplinary action taken against personnel should occur at this time as well.”
The memo comes after four UNC employees were secretly filmed by a conservative nonprofit discussing circumventing DEI restrictions; three of those employees are no longer employed by their universities.
