Former UNC provost sued Board of Trustees over secrecy. Now, the case is settled
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Lawsuit alleged UNC trustees held secret meetings and used auto‑delete messages.
- Complaint claimed trustees debated tenure policy in closed session, violating law.
- Settlement ends case with no monetary exchange and each side bearing its own costs.
Former UNC-Chapel Hill provost Chris Clemens and the university’s Board of Trustees have settled a lawsuit in which Clemens accused the board of holding illegitimate closed meetings in what he saw as a larger pattern of secrecy.
The settlement is the result of a mutual agreement to resolve the matter, according to a joint statement from UNC and Clemens. Each party will bear their own legal costs.
The lawsuit accused the UNC Board of Trustees of illegally discussing a major policy issue in closed session: namely, whether tenure should exist at UNC. The board entered closed session on March 20, 2025, purportedly to discuss specific tenure appointments, Clemens contended, only to then shift to tenure’s “existential value to UNC, its financial implications, and whether to defer an entire slate.”
“North Carolina law draws that line with clarity: specific personnel matters may be closed; general policy must be public,” the lawsuit reads. “By debating tenure policy in secret and acting on that secret debate, the Board crossed the statutory boundary and violated the Open Meetings Law.”
Clemens said the board calculated that over the next 30 years, tenure commitments would amount to $80 million, and board members were concerned that it would be an unwise investment given funding uncertainty. Clemens compared this episode to the hiring of football coach Bill Belichick earlier that school year.
“Ironically, just four months earlier in December 2024, the Board convened an ‘emergency’ meeting — and after entering closed session — approved the hire of Bill Belichick under multiyear, multi-million-dollar commitments reported at approximately $10 million per year, together with additional compensation obligations for Belichick’s sons and expanded staff, placing the total exposure well into the tens of millions over five years,” the complaint reads. “The Board did not present any comparable thirty-year ‘net present cost’ analysis, nor did it invoke long-horizon fiscal restraint to defer that decision for a single UNC employee.”
In its response, the board flatly denied debating tenure’s “existential value” in closed session. Plus, “each of the tenure candidates on the slate proposed on March 20, 2025, were ultimately conferred tenure by the Board,” the response reads.
Another claim in the lawsuit centered around board chair John Preyer’s use of the messaging app Signal’s auto-delete feature — both as a violation of public records law and as an illegal meeting held without notice. A judge dismissed both claims before the settlement.
Clemens resigned as provost in May 2025. Preyer then resigned from the board in January 2026.
“The parties have mutually agreed to resolve the matter, with neither party recovering money from the other and each party bearing its own litigation costs,” a joint statement from UNC and Clemens reads. Neither party agreed to discuss the matter further.
