The response to last week’s piece about Bill Belichick and faculty salaries was overwhelming. If you missed it in your inbox, you can check it out here.
Whether or not you think Belichick is the right fit for UNC, it’s clear there is concern about UNC’s priorities when weighing sports versus academics – and the influence of the Board of Trustees in both matters.
Here are a few of the responses we received:
“Public schools as farm teams for pros. Football and basketball rather than academics and student services. Ridiculous B.S.”
“We need to reward teachers, not celebrities.”
“I was concerned about the Belichick hire because of the financial commitment, especially to one sport and …. I am definitely concerned about the board’s inserting itself into academic matters as well.”
That last comment alluded to something that got perhaps an even more forceful response than Belichick: the Trustees’ meddling in the admissions process.
For many applicants, this time of year concludes the culmination of a lifelong dream to become a Tar Heel. They expected the process to be fair at The People’s University. Most of them don’t know much, if anything, about the UNC Board of Trustees. They’ve never heard the name John Preyer.
But UNC admissions officials know that name well.
As The Assembly noted in its December coverage of Trustees meddling in the admissions process:
“Of the six trustees whose messages were provided by UNC-CH, Preyer’s spring 2024 texts to McClure were the most direct in pushing for updates on applicants’ admissions status.”
John Preyer, the Chair of the Board of Trustees, who is supposed to be leading the charge in fair, thoughtful guidance in University matters, sent countless pointed messages pressuring University officials to admit certain students.
Here’s one:
“I would like to see [redacted] in,” Preyer wrote to McClure after referencing the waitlist. “This is a smart [redacted] who’d be good for lots of programs at UNC.”
Here’s another:
In May, Preyer told McClure that “a little push would be nice” after asking him to check someone’s status. The following month, he asked McClure “whether [redacted] could get a second look.”
And another:
In early April, Preyer reached out about an applicant that he said he’d received a call about. McClure told Preyer that the individual was waitlisted. He added that the applicant was “middle of the pack from [redacted]” and may have a full ride to Princeton University, though he said he would “make another run at it.”
The first part of Preyer’s response is largely redacted, but in the latter part he wrote: “… so that is hard to see as middle of pack unless there is a bunch of Asians involved?”
Thousands of hopeful UNC applicants will get their acceptance and rejection notices today. They deserved a fair process.
Whether it’s the pro football coach coming to town after fast-tracked, closed-door meetings, or the well-connected applicant getting an unfair helping hand in admissions, the leadership of the UNC Board of Trustees continues crossing lines and losing focus.
Carolina deserves better from those entrusted to serve the school we love.
P.S. Help us hold them accountable. Click here to contribute to The Coalition for Carolina.
This is horrendous. Every UNC alum who cares about fairness and the reputation of UNC should immediately email Preyer requesting his resignation and that of any BOT members who also engaged in arm twisting for specific applicants. This is not the Carolina way.
Oh please Carolina takes guys who can barely read or speak in any articulate form, give them scholarships for all their sports, and Carolina thinks it is an elite group who survive on the dollars of the uneducated buying their gear logos and tickets to ballgames along with contributing to be in the Rams club. I know for a fact many many apps carry the phrase, I am a legacy. So stop with the whining. It has happened the entire life of the University, I’ve watched it happen. Carolina is just a WOKE school churning out mediocre graduates while getting rich off federally backed student loans.