DeSantis’ assault on Florida universities shows the need to protect the UNC System | Opinion

The Governor’s Commission on the Governance of Public Universities in North Carolina started out as a wonky review of how university boards are appointed.

Now it’s looking like a rescue mission.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ trampling of academic freedom at Florida’s public universities gives the commission’s work here a sense of urgency.

Catering to his conservative base, DeSantis has targeted his state’s universities as so-called centers of liberal indoctrination. He’s moved to gut diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, to give trustees more power over faculty hiring, to limit tenure and to ban academic majors that focus on gender and race.

Tom Ross, a former University of North Carolina System president and co-chairman of the governor’s commission, said of the Florida situation, “It is concerning any time there are efforts to imprint particular views on university campuses. The whole point of the university is to teach students to think for themselves.”

DeSantis is at the forefront of a national effort to exert more political control over hiring, policies and curriculum at public universities. The Republican governors of Virginia and Texas have taken similar steps.

In North Carolina, Republican university appointees also are pushing back against diversity policies while seeking more influence over what is taught and who is teaching. A 2022 report by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) criticized the “mounting political interference” at UNC. Some faculty worry that North Carolina’s public universities will soon get the full Florida treatment.

Claudia Cabello Hutt, the AAUP chapter president at UNC-Greensboro, said, “We know that there is a conservative playbook that gets passed from state to state and we are very concerned about measures in Florida curtailing academic freedom, labor protections, and free speech in general being imposed in North Carolina.”

This concern gives new importance to the commission that Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper created on Nov. 1. The 16 universities in the UNC system need stronger protection against political intrusions. That could come by removing, or at least balancing, the politics behind the appointment of the UNC System’s Board of Governors and the trustees who oversee each campus. The commission is scheduled to deliver its recommendations by July 1.

Of course, Republican state lawmakers who control the General Assembly and the appointment of UNC’s governors and trustees like the system just as it is. They’ve stocked the boards with loyal conservatives and they say they will ignore the commission’s recommendations.

Commission member Brad Wilson, a former CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina and a former chairman of the UNC Board of Governors, said, “It’s unfortunate that with a commission like this – a diverse group that cares about the university – to say, ‘We don’t plan to listen.’ It’s kind of sad.”

The legislative leaders’ recklessly partisan approach doesn’t make the commission’s work pointless. Instead it makes it more important to show how UNC can be overseen by people who reflect the state’s population and who respect the UNC System’s contributions to North Carolina’s well-being and progress.

Jay Smith, a UNC-Chapel Hill professor and head of the state AAUP, told me political meddling is already taking a toll.

“The faculty who remain in the UNC System are demoralized, uncertain about the future, and encountering obstacles in their work that they should not have to deal with,” he said. “A weakened faculty will inevitably give us – arguably is already giving us – a weakened university system.”

The commission will hold a public forum at the Charlotte Area Chamber of Commerce. from 9 a.m to noon on Monday. Forums in Greenville, Greensboro and Durham are upcoming.