UNC System faculty take a new stand against push to publish course details | Opinion

Faculty members across the University of North Carolina System are protesting a move to publish details of their course offerings for fear that the exposure may lead to their dismissal or even threats to their safety.

Pressure to publish the contents of courses, known as the course syllabus, or syllabi in the plural, is coming from conservative groups who want to monitor public university instructors. They think the public airing of syllabi will expose course content involving diversity, racism, gay rights, feminism or other subjects they consider part of liberal indoctrination.

Many faculty members say publishing their syllabi tramples on academic freedom and could invite conservative activists to harass them or their students in person or through the publishing of their personal information, known as “doxing.”

More than 1,600 people with ties to the UNC System have signed a petition urging President Peter Hans not to go through with a proposal to publish syllabi. It will be presented to Hans on Friday.

It says in part, “Providing public access to syllabi during a period of heightened partisanship and rising political violence looks like partisan pandering with a cost to faculty and no benefit.”

It adds that it “puts faculty, students, and the entire university at risk of technology-facilitated threats and physical harm. If ‘disfavored’ information appears on syllabi, inexpert and politically-motivated actors will seek to harm faculty or disrupt classes.”

Hans said in an op-ed this week that he will make syllabi public, but in an interview on PBS North Carolina this week he also said the university will protect academic freedom.

Academic freedom is “a bedrock principle embedded in the DNA of the university,” Hans said in the PBS interview. “We’re committed to the freedom of our faculty to pursue knowledge without fear of censorship or punishment. That hasn’t changed, and it won’t change. What has changed, of course, is the political climate that we live in. And people being very critical of any teaching or research that they may not agree with.”

Publishing syllabi is part of a national trend as conservative states have pushed for a closer view of public university courses and academic research projects. Public universities in Texas, Ohio, Indiana, Utah, Florida and Georgia have laws or policies requiring public posting of course syllabi.

Faculty opponents of requiring such posting for the UNC System say the formation of a syllabus is the intellectual property of the faculty member and shouldn’t be treated as a public record.

At UNC-Chapel Hill, the administration has backed that view. When The Oversight Project, a group founded by the conservative Heritage Foundation, requested the syllabi for 74 UNC-CH courses in August, the university did not comply

UNC spokesman Kevin Best told the Daily Tar Heel in an email: “Course materials, including but not limited to exams, lectures, assignments and syllabi, are the intellectual property of the preparer and are owned by the preparer as non-traditional work.”

However, Inside Higher Ed reported that administrators at UNC-Greensboro took an opposite approach to a similar request, saying the syllabi are public records that are subject to a public records request.

Which side Hans will come down on is unclear. He’s stated his support for academic freedom, but exactly what that term protects is still being considered. Faculty groups and administrators are in the process of agreeing on a systemwide definition that is expected to be submitted in January to the UNC System Board of Governors for approval.

Abigail Hatcher, an associate professor at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and a member of the campus chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), said the push for a definition of academic freedom is an effort to exert more control over faculty.

“Redefining academic freedom now is a red herring – the real story is a small group trying to turn universities corporate,” she said. “Calling instructors ‘work for hire’ and stripping them of copyright is a sure-fire way to turn creative thinkers into widgets. And that blocks the public benefits that they offer students and our state.”

Helen Rose Miesner, a UNC-CH assistant professor and an officer with the North Carolina conference of the AAUP, said that beyond the question of who owns syllabi, there is a practical concern.

“There’s the fact that you might see this chilling effect on research and expression for faculty and students,” she said. “And plus, the faculty don’t want to teach in that environment. So that also puts a dent in our capacity to recruit and retain faculty for the UNC System.”

People outside the university might wonder why public employees are reluctant to post the details of their course content. But the request to publish syllabi is not an honest one. It is an effort to intimidate faculty whose instruction ventures into subjects some conservatives don’t want explored.

It’s not a matter of protecting faculty. It’s about protecting free inquiry. It is a process that is essential to serving society by pursuing truth. It is at the center of a university that is truly a university and not an echo chamber for those in political power.

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-404-7583, or nbarnett@newsobserver.com

This story was originally published December 10, 2025 at 11:45 AM.