In light of protests, UNC Chapel Hill cuts diversity funding and beefs up security funding

“Defund the police and fund DEI,” were common cries on campuses in the last few years. But, in at least one case, the funding directions have suddenly reversed.

As NBC News reports, this happened at the flagship campus of the University of North Carolina (UNC): UNC at Chapel Hill.  As I’ve reported, this was only the second university in America (after the University of Chicago) to adopt official institutional neutrality on ideological, political, or moral issues. (This is the equivalent of Chicago’s Kalven Report.) Sadly, while the school has adopted neutrality, it’s still violating it in several ways. So we can say that UNC Chapel Hill talks the talk, but still doesn’t completely walk the walk.

Curiously, the violations of Kalven UNC enacted involve just those that are now endangered for lack of funds: mandatory antiracism policies, including DEI initiatives. Click the headline below to read:

An excerpt:

North Carolina’s public university system considers a vote on changing its diversity policy, the system’s flagship university board voted Monday to cut funding for diversity programs in next year’s budget.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees approved a change that would divert $2.3 million of diversity funding to go toward public safety and policing at a special meeting to address the university’s budget. The board’s vote would only impact UNC-Chapel Hill’s diversity funding, which could result in the loss of its diversity office.

The vote to shift more funding to public safety comes as continued pro-Palestinian protests on UNC’s campus have resulted in several arrests in recent weeks. The budget committee vice-chair Marty Kotis said law enforcement has already been forced to react to protests, but they need more funding to keep the university “safe from a larger threat.”

“It’s important to consider the needs of all 30,000 students, not just the 100 or so that may want to disrupt the university’s operations,” Kotis said. “It takes away resources for others.”

It’s ironic that this tradeoff is apparently happening because of college protests (DEI was on the way out in many places before the war, anyway), for many of the protests are fueled by the DEI mentality, which sees Israel as a land of white colonialist oppressors. And yet the police are needed to ensure that the protests don’t produce any violence to people or university propertly. (To be sure, there has been almost no physical danger from either side, although Jewish students did attack the encampment at UCLA, and that may have followed a Jewish woman being stepped on and kicked by protestors.)

There’s more:

Last month, the statewide board’s Committee on University Governance voted to reverse and replace its DEI policy for 17 schools across the state. The change would alter a 2019 diversity, equity and inclusion regulation that defines the roles of various DEI positions — and it would appear to eliminate those jobs if the policy is removed.

The full 24-member board is scheduled to vote next week on the policy change. If the alteration is approved, it will take effect immediately.

Many of us have called for an end to diversity offices and diversity statements at colleges and universities on several grounds, including that of ineffective programs and compelled speech. But I’ve also argued that at least a few people in each school should be tasked with investigating and enforcing prohibitions against bigotry as well as harassment in the workplace.

h/t Jay