Image source: https://www.wunc.org/show/due-south/2024-05-01/unc-chapel-hill-pro-palestinian-protests-student-journalists
The UNC campus and the larger Carolina community are deeply divided over the pro-Palestinian protests on campus and the administration’s response.
This is a time when our university needs experienced leadership, constructive dialogue and a free exchange of ideas and information. It is a time when North Carolina needs UNC to provide education, promote understanding and bring people together – not drive them farther apart.
But sadly, UNC cannot do that today in the way it has throughout our history. That is the direct result of years of legislative interference in campus operations.
The Coalition for Carolina was formed two years ago to push back against that interference. Events of recent days tell us that we’re right. And that we must keep working.
We are well aware that members of our coalition have divergent opinions about what has happened. Many sympathize with the protesters’ concern over civilian deaths in Gaza. Many others are deeply offended by reports of antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric. Many, maybe most, share both sentiments.
Many are disappointed by Interim Chancellor Lee Roberts’ decision to call in armed police who, according to media on the scene, used force and pepper spray to disperse the protesters.
Many applaud Roberts for that action and for lowering the Palestinian flag and raising the American flag.
The top leaders of the state legislature – Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore – said afterward that Roberts should be appointed permanent chancellor.
After the flag incident, Roberts said UNC belongs to “every citizen of North Carolina.”
To us, that is precisely the point. The current UNC Board of Trustees and the UNC System Board of Governors don’t represent all the people of North Carolina. They are appointed by a legislature which stripped the governor of the other party of any appointments.
We believe that – especially in a state as closely divided along partisan and ideological lines as North Carolina – a broad range of viewpoints should be represented on universities’ governing boards.
As former UNC System President Tom Ross said recently, “a lack of diversity among university leadership and governance boards is both a disservice to students across the UNC System and leads to the controversy and volatility that we are seeing threaten our public universities.”
The Problems of Politics
Three realities that relate to political interference shape the current campus situation:
Administrative Churn
We have a relatively new provost, a huge percentage of deans who have been in role less than three years, with two more experienced deans on their way out the door, and now an interim chancellor who has had little time to build up relationships across campus that can help in times of crisis.
Indeed, we are hearing that next to no consultation with faculty occurred before police were called to campus and that trustees were in South Building urging Roberts to call in the police.
Chilled Faculty Speech
Even before the Silent Sam debacle, faculty have been punished for speaking out on issues. Remember, people can be punished without losing their professorships. Leadership positions can be taken away or withheld and, indeed they have been. We’ve reported on several such instances, as have other outlets. In a situation as difficult as this current crisis, faculty, staff, and students need to know they can speak, teach, and discuss without fear of reprisal.
Neutered institutional speech
With the adoption of the Kalven report a little over a year ago, leaders including chancellors, provosts, and deans are prevented from speaking out on “the issues of the day.” This report, created by seven professors at the University of Chicago in 1967 and not seen again until a year ago when it was resurrected by right-wing think tanks, effectively makes leaders into managers, keeping them from providing moral leadership to a campus and setting a tone for how an institution will approach difficult national or international events.
Of course, all issues of discourse were to be solved by the much-hyped and politically motivated School of Civic Life and Leadership. We’ve seen hide nor hair of them in the current crisis.
Reporting From the Scene
Student journalists at The Daily Tar Heel were at the protesters’ encampment and during the police action. Two DTH editors talked about what they saw and heard in this segment of WUNC Radio’s “Due South” program: https://www.wunc.org/show/due-south/2024-05-01/unc-chapel-hill-pro-palestinian-protests-student-journalists
We believe it’s important for all of us to seek objective, first-hand information, rather than depending on hearsay and second- or third-hand reports that might reflect biases one way or the other.
UNC’s Voices Are Needed Today
To be sure, educational conversations that engage people’s strongly held beliefs and identities will ever be easy. But our campus has so much expertise both in the substantive issues related to the war in Gaza and in adjacent issues such as diplomacy, international law, Middle Eastern history and politics…the list is endless.
We need a larger effort to engage our campus around the educational aspects of this terrible crisis in the Middle East.
Today we see too much darkness and division, not Lux Libertas – light and liberty.
We hope the experience of recent days will awaken more people to the need for governance reform – and an end to interference.
The future of UNC depends on it.
We will keep working toward that goal.