Author: Coalition for Carolina

Guskiewicz on SCOTUS Affirmative Action Ruling

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UNC Chapel Hill shared this response to the June 29th SCOTUS ruling that struck down UNC-Chapel Hill admissions affirmative action practices.

Dear Carolina Community,

This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. University of North Carolina, et. al., our case about race-conscious admissions. While not the outcome we hoped for, we respect the Supreme Court’s decision and will follow its guidance.

Carolina is committed to bringing together talented students with different perspectives and life experiences and to making an affordable, high-quality education accessible to the people of North Carolina and beyond. We are passionately public, and that will always be true. Our strategic plan’s first initiative is to “Build our Community Together.” We will build that community with you and work to provide a campus environment where all of our students know they belong and can thrive.

I know that this decision may raise questions about our future and how we fulfill our mission and live out our values. But Carolina is built for this, and we have been preparing for any outcome. Our leadership team will need time to thoroughly review the details of this outcome and its potential impact before determining specifically how we will comply with this decision. In the coming weeks, we will communicate our plans with the campus community.

For more information about this Supreme Court case, you can visit admissionslawsuit.unc.edu.

Sincerely,

Kevin M. Guskiewicz
Chancellor

Bad Ruling for UNC

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In a serious blow to UNC, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that the University’s affirmative-action admissions policy is unconstitutional.

We soon will know more about the decision and its impact. But we know one thing for sure: You, the members of the Coalition for Carolina, believe this will hurt the University.

As we reported earlier, we did an online poll of our 22,000+ members, friends and followers last month, and 486 of you responded.

The poll included this question:

“The US Supreme Court is hearing a case about affirmative action involving UNC. If the court rules that affirmative action programs at the university are unconstitutional, do you think it will have a positive or negative impact on the university?”

The result:

  • By 83-11%, those who responded said it will have a “negative impact” on UNC.
  • 42% said the impact would be “very negative” and 41% said “somewhat negative.”

We’d like to hear more about what you think. Follow this link to send us your comments. https://coalitionforcarolinafoundation.org/contact/

Coalition Survey Results

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We wanted to know what you think about what’s going on at the University of North Carolina. So, we asked you.

Almost 500 of you – 486, to be exact – responded to our online survey last month. Here is what you told us:

  • You see an inherent value in pursuing higher education, and you are extremely positive toward UNC.
  • You have deep-seated belief that the state legislature is having a negative impact on the UNC system.
  • You believe that professors, faculty, and administration – not politicians – should have the greater role in deciding public university curriculum.
  • You are paying attention to recent debates involving UNC, and you recognize the importance of our coalition.
  • A significant number of you are willing to take action in support of our university and our coalition.

We were struck by your high degree of interest and concern. The poll was lengthy – 33 questions, many with multiple parts. Despite the length, nearly every person who started the survey completed all the questions.

In the weeks ahead, we’ll share more insights from the survey with you.

Stop NC Legislators From Meddling In College Accreditation

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The NC legislature is in the process of passing legislation that will force NC colleges to change accreditors every cycle placing a heavy burden on NC universities and community colleges. The change could also harm students and the reputation of all NC higher education institutions.

There have been attempts to justify such an egregious and unnecessary change and even suggestions that the current accreditor somehow invited such action or deserves it.  Any such suggestion is not true.  SACSCOC simply did their job and followed normal process by sending a letter to Carolina asking for more details about the process trustees used to propose the new School of Civic Life and Leadership. Following that inquiry, several right-wing NC politicians sent a somewhat threatening letter to the accreditor and then Senate Bill 680 (copy and paste this link to see the bill as the legislature often blocks referrals from our website https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookUp/2023/S680) was proposed and has passed the NC senate. The Coalition recently held a webinar to alert the public about the potential dangers of this proposed legislation to change accreditors. What follows are video clips and accompanying text from that webinar.

Ms. Sallie Shuping Russell was a former member of the SACSCOC board shares how accreditors actually work with colleges.  She also touches on actions leading up to the recent legislation.

Dr. Holden Thorp, former UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor shares his thoughts on why it is important for politicians to avoid meddling in the accreditation process and why politicians might want to do so.

Dr. Jerry Lucido Founder of the USC Center for Enrollment, Research and Policy and Practice explains how an accrediting change can hurt Carolina and other colleges.

Dr Roslyn Artis, President of Benedict College and SACSCOC board member, explains what the benefits are of working with the same accreditor.

By many measures, forcing an expensive, cumbersome, unnecessary accreditor change on UNC System and NC Community colleges is dangerous and terrible idea, that you can impact.  Dr. Mimi Chapman provides her thoughts to webinar attendees any you on what you can do to try and stop this madness.

The Truth Matters

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Once again, some members of the UNC Board of Trustees aren’t shooting straight with the University community.

This time, it’s about origins of the ideologically driven “School of Civic Life and Leadership” that the trustees rammed through – with the support of politicians in the state legislature – without informing and adequately consulting the University’s faculty and administration.

Trustee Perrin W. Jones from Greenville has twice written articles, the latest on May 22, claiming that the idea for the new school “goes back years—and has involved faculty input from the beginning.” (Link below.)

That is what Abraham Lincoln once called “a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse chestnut to be a chestnut horse.”

Here is what really happened.

Beginning in 2017, then-Chancellor Carol Folt and others at the University initiated discussions about a proposed “Program for Civic Virtue and Civil Discourse.”

But early conversations suggested that the goal was to create a new, donor-funded center that would explicitly embrace political, right wing ideas. Many faculty members strongly and vocally opposed that.

In 2019, Interim Dean Terry Ellen Rhodes announced the establishment of the Program for Public Discourse in the College of Arts & Sciences, to bring in various speakers and offer students a forum for debate.

Some faculty members still had questions and concerns, and a resolution to delay implementation of the program was presented to the Faculty Council.

The resolution failed, but that vote certainly didn’t represent faculty endorsement of the program. And the faculty clearly never endorsed creating a course-offering, degree-granting entity like the School of Civic Life and Leadership.

It certainly isn’t right to claim that what the faculty did then is an endorsement of what the trustees are doing now.

David Boliek, chair of the trustees, made clear the political purpose of the School of Civic Life and Leadership when he was interviewed on Fox News in February, introduced as someone “who helped create the school.”

He acknowledged “we have world-class faculty” at Carolina, but added, “We however have no shortage of left-of-center or progressive views on campus, like many campuses across the nation. But the same really can’t be said about right-of-center views. So this is an effort to try to remedy that.”

Now, legislators want to spend $2 million in taxpayer money on the school in each of the next two years – to promote “right-of-center” viewpoints.

Trustees and legislators shouldn’t be creating new degree programs and deciding what is taught at public universities like UNC, especially if the motivation is purely political. Whatever motivated the board of trustees, the process they deployed wound up shutting out the faculty and administration.

Further, we don’t know if a Faculty and Administration designed and implemented School of Civic Life and Leadership is a good idea or not.  Certainly, if its purpose is to promote a particular political agenda and viewpoint it is not.

Faculty members are reliable, professional and have been proven leaders for decades.  That is a major reason that Carolina is great. Any new program must include the faculty and administration from the beginning.

That didn’t happen here.

No “specious and fantastic arrangement of words” can prove this horse chestnut to be a chestnut horse.

Jones article: https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2023/05/the-true-story-of-unc-chapel-hills-new-school/

Watch the Boliek interview on our March 2 post: https://coalitionforcarolinafoundation.org/the-gop-playbook-for-intervening-in-higher-education/

Important Accreditation Webinar Recording

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If you missed our webinar on accreditation you missed a really great discussion. The recording is now available and you can access it here: Coalition for Carolina Accreditation Webinar Recording

The bill to force an accreditation change is now moving through the NC House. Please contact your NC House Representatives and let them know whether you want to force this dangerous and costly process of continuous disruption in the accrediting process on North Carolina colleges.  Here is the link to who the house representatives are: https://www.ncleg.gov/Members/MemberList/H Please copy and paste this link into your browser.

It will only take you one hour to view the recording, but if you want to get a sense of what was discussed, Joe Killian does an excellent job summarizing the discussion in a piece published in NC Newsline.  Here is an excerpt of what Killian writes:

“A bill that would compel UNC System universities and community colleges to change accreditors flew under the radar in the recent flurry of higher education legislation at the General Assembly. But as Senate Bill 680 clears legislative hurdles on the way to becoming law, the public should pay attention to the “in the weeds” issue of accreditation, a panel of experts said Wednesday.

Accreditation has become a hot-button issue among conservative lawmakers and their political appointees. But the potential harms of making seismic changes to the long-established process are important to understand, the experts agreed.

“Quite frankly, I don’t think anybody’s paid much attention to it,” said Sallie Shuping-Russell, a former member of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees, of the bill during the Wednesday panel organized by the non-profit Coalition for Carolina.

“Who the heck understands accreditation?” she said.But the issue is “really vitally important,” said Shuping-Russell, who also served two years as a public representative on the board of

Carolina First

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In the 18 months since the Coalition for Carolina was formed, more than 22,000 people have joined our email and social media networks.

We are alumni, friends, family, faculty, students, staff and supporters of the University. Many of us live in North Carolina, and others live in Utah, Maine, Florida, New York, other states, and overseas.

Check out a partial list of our supporters here: https://coalitionforcarolinafoundation.org/

We are Republicans, Independents and Democrats.

We want what is best for Carolina.

Yet, one member of the UNC Board of Trustees continues to attack us on Twitter, on Facebook and in paid newspaper ads.

He claims that our coalition’s “sole purpose is to try to convince North Carolinians that Republican-appointed trustees are hell-bent on destroying the university.”

He is wrong.

What we want is for members of the Board of Trustees – whatever their party or ideology – to put Carolina first.

We want the trustees to embrace and work within the shared governance model that has served Carolina for decades.

We want trustees to advocate for adequate faculty compensation and badly needed repairs and renovations.

We want the trustees to protect tenure – and academic freedom.

We want the trustees to protect Carolina’s accreditation.

We want the trustees – and politicians in Raleigh – to stop meddling in the University’s day-to-day workings.

We want the trustees to stop ambushing the Chancellor and faculty with poorly conceived, ideologically driven new departments and schools.

We want good governance and a spirit of cooperation among trustees, the administration, faculty, students and, yes, alumni.

That spirit is the Carolina Way.

It serves the University far better than shrill partisanship.

Let’s put partisan politics last and Carolina first.

Roger Perry Responds to Trustee’s Attack

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Marty Kotis of Greensboro, a current trustee of UNC-Chapel Hill, last week published an attack on me, the Coalition for Carolina and the University itself. You can read it here.  https://nsjonline.com/article/2023/04/kotis-the-hypocrisy-of-the-coalition-for-carolina/

When I had the honor of serving on the Board of Trustees (2003-2011), trustees put party, politics and personalities aside. We put the University first. Times certainly have changed.

I feel compelled to correct statements Marty made that aren’t true. Marty said I am a Democrat. No, I have been a registered unaffiliated voter for a number of years.

He said our coalition is a partisan vehicle. No, we are Democrats, Republicans and Independents.

He said the University, its administration and former trustees mismanaged finances and failed students and the State of North Carolina. No, that is demonstrably false.

He is correct that when I was a trustee and board chair (2007-2009), Carolina faced severe budget challenges. That’s because the legislature imposed draconian budget cuts on all universities after the 2008 recession. We overcame that challenge. Carolina became one of the nation’s top five university recipients of federal research dollars, $2 billion in revenues. We attracted faculty members who do groundbreaking research that fights AIDS, Covid, genetic diseases like Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and other diseases. 

We worked across party lines to secure permanent funding for the Lineberger Cancer Center, which has saved countless lives of North Carolinians and their families. We funded the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), which brings together researchers, government, and industry to develop and deploy advanced technologies that enable research discoveries and practical innovations.

Applications for admission to UNC have soared in the last two decades. Over 57,000 students applied for 4,800 slots in the Class of 2026. These students and their parents don’t think Carolina is failing.

The bipartisanship – truly, the nonpartisanship – behind that success is jeopardized by partisan attacks like Marty’s.

His is part of a national pattern of far-right political attacks on public universities, led by Governors Ron DeSantis of Florida, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Greg Abbott of Texas. Marty’s essay ran in the North State Journal, a conservative publication with close ties to the public relations firm that he and the trustees hired, apparently to attack our Coalition.

They won’t stop us from shining a light on what several of the current trustees are doing. Instead of supporting and advancing the University, they are sowing disruption and disrespect.

Our audience includes thousands of people – Democrats, Republicans and Independents – who are concerned about political interference at Carolina. One example: The legislature has taken away the power of the Governor of North Carolina to appoint any trustees at any university. Why? Because he’s a Democrat. Elected officials certainly should have a voice in the University. But legislators represent 170 separate districts. The governor, Democrat or Republican, represents the whole state.

Historically, UNC has been served well by shared governance: trustees, administration, faculty and student leaders working together. Today, we see pure politics, not good governance.

Our Coalition will stand up to political attacks. We will stand up for the University’s independence and academic integrity. We will stand up for the light that is the University of North Carolina.

Roger Perry

Politicizing College Accreditation

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The legislature, specifically the NC Senate, appears to be trying to make college and community college accreditation a political issue, which it never should be. Accreditation is a highly focused, disciplined process for all schools that receive certain federal contracts as well as those whose students receive certain scholarships, particularly Pell grants – federal needs-based scholarships that fund full-time and part-time college and vocational school students. The proposed Senate bill ( use this link if you get an error as they sometimes block referrals from our website https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookUp/2023/S680) may sound innocuous, but it isn’t. Its key tenets are:

  • It requires UNC system schools and community colleges to change accreditors every accreditation cycle (about every 10 years).
  • It requires that the new accreditor to be chosen from “a preferred list” that is compiled by the Board of Governors.  
  • It allows one party to sue a person who raises an accreditation issue that leads to a college being found to be “out of compliance” for accreditation if that person is determined to have made a false statement (a reasonable sounding process that in past instances has chilled whistleblowers who fear that their truth will be labeled lies).

It is always risky to change accreditors, but when politicians are trying to drive an accreditor change and dictate the list from which a new creditor can be chosen, it becomes dangerous.  

In addition to the fundamental actions imposed by the bill, cited above, let’s delineate a few more concerns raised with inadequate accreditation:

  1. Potential loss of $1.5 billion in federal financial aid funds: this is the amount Carolina alone receives in federal financial aid funds; the total system received much more. This does not include research funding of other institutional grants which may rely on a recipient being accredited.  
  • The process becomes politicized when politicians are the driving force behind changing accreditors.  Lack of political influence is a core piece of all significant accrediting agencies so this alone would pose a problem to most reputable and highly quality accreditors.
  • Threats to Academic STANDARDS:  Accreditation helps ensure a certain academic quality across different colleges and universities; and therefore, protects students, faculty and the value of degrees for those who have already graduated. If politicians force colleges to change accreditors without a valid reason or sufficient evidence, it threatens academic quality and undermines the integrity of the institution.
  • Impact on Reputation:  Changing accreditors can create a perception that an institution has failed to meet the standards of its previous accreditor, which can have a negative impact on its reputation. This will not only effect enrolled students, but past graduates.
  • Loss of Institutional Knowledge: Accreditation requires a deep understanding of a college or university’s operations, policies, and procedures. When an institution changes accreditors, it loses that institutional knowledge and expertise that it has built up over many years.  New agencies would take much longer and place a much more significant burden on administrators when they have to acquaint new accreditors with their policies and practices.   This adds administrative costs to the schools.
  • Students who transfer to another institution or who seek additional educational degrees risk not being accepted if their degree comes from a school that has a lower standard of accreditation.   

According to the Urban Institute, “The accreditation system in American higher education began in the late 1800s and early 1900s as a way for colleges and universities with high academic standards to distinguish themselves from institutions that claimed to be colleges but had curricula similar to many high schools (Harcleroad 1980).”  Accreditation is intended to be an objective process that evaluates academic quality based on agreed-upon standards. One concern of all accreditors is that the institutions not have undue influence by political decision-makers or influencers as politicization undermines objectivity and credibility in the scholarly process and erodes academic freedom.

What happens when an accrediting agency has a concern regarding the actions or activities of a member institution? The accrediting agency contacts the institution and asks for clarification, initially in the form of a relatively standard letter.   This is what happened when UNC’s accrediting agency, SACSCOC, sent a letter to Chancellor Guskiewicz earlier this year asking for more information about the recent action by Carolina’s trustees regarding the proposed School of Civic Life and Leadership.   Chancellor Guskiewicz responded, providing detail about how the university intended to assess and, if approved by the faculty, create the new program.   That satisfied, and therefore concluded, the SACSCOC query here.

When the institution responds the agency decides whether the answer was sufficient to satisfy the question. If it is sufficient, there is no further action — as was the recent case with Carolina.   If it is not sufficient, there will be further conversations between the accrediting agency and the school.  Sometimes additional information is needed and at times penalties are imposed.  It is everyone’s goal – the accreditor and the school – for the accreditation to stand.

Chancellor Guskiewicz’s response to the recent SACSCOC letter satisfied the agency that proper processes were being followed at this time.  However, that did not satisfy our legislature.  Almost as soon as Senator Berger learned that SACSCOC intended “to send a letter” asking for clarification about the proposed new program – standard procedure when an accreditor has a question – he introduced bill 680, (Revise Higher Ed Accreditation Processes). This was his reaction to a presentation by the head of SACSCOC to the Governor’s Commission on the Governance of Public Universities in North Carolina. 

Recall Chief Justice Felix Frankfurter’s four essential freedoms of a college or university in deciding Sweezy vs New Hampshire: Universities have the right (1) to determine who may teach; (2) what can be taught; (3) how it is taught; and (4) who will be admitted.  Pushing changes in accreditation harms these essential institutional freedoms.  Further, Carolina is currently accredited by the highest level and quality of external accreditation.  Changing accreditors from an accreditor like SACSCOC would likely result in a lower quality accreditation of our programs, which would damage past, present, and future generations.   

Because of the serious consequences noted above, we’ve decided to host a webinar with a panel to discuss the potential ramifications of Senate Bill 680.  We’ll send out invitations to the webinar once the logistics are complete.  In the meantime, we want to point out that this draft bill sponsored by Senator Berger also raises alarms and concerns because it seems eerily similar to the extremist action that Ron DeSantis took in Florida against their college accreditor, but with an even more severe twist given its allowance of litigation.

It is critical that we not stand still here.   Contact representatives and alert your neighbors to the threats this bill proposes.  The vast majority of colleges and universities in the southeast are accredited by SACSCOC.  If the North Carolina university system and community colleges seek a lessor accreditor we all stand to lose.

We’ve posted images of the entire draft bill on our website.  Follow this link to read the draft bill.

Please attend and give input at the Governor’s Commission meetings.  You can participate in person or virtually.  Follow this link for the schedule. 

Putting UNC’s Accreditation at Risk

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The NC Senate is working on a new bill that would force UNC System colleges and NC Community Colleges to change accreditors. Accreditation is the key determiner of a higher education institution’s credibility, value of degrees, and ability to secure federal funds for financial aid. Politicians trying to interfere in the accreditation process in any way is extremely dangerous. Below are images of the draft bill. You can also access it here (copy and paste this URL in your browser if you get an error as they sometimes block referrals from our website https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookUp/2023/S680):