UNC Chapel Hill Board of Trustees (BOT) Chairman David Boliek advised trustees to stay out of student government campaigns and elections, but Trustee Mary Kotis did not follow that advice.
First reported in this article by NC Policy Watch, on February 7, 2022 Kotis not only attended the online debate between candidates for student body president, but actively participated in questioning candidates and challenging some of their responses.
Several students complained about this overreach and inappropriate behavior to Student Body President Lamar Richards. Richards sent a complaint to the UNC System president and chair of the UNC Board of Governors’ University Governance Committee, alleging that Kotis attended an online debate, asked questions and offered “pointed, professionally inappropriate responses in the chat”. Richards is requesting that Kotis be removed from the Board of Trustees.
In a long, detailed response, Kotis:
- admitted to asking the very first question, which Richards says set the tone for the debate;
- agreed that he was not pleased with a response from a candidate, (who accused the BOT of being highly partisan) so followed up in the chat to challenge that student by name;
- denied that Chair Boliek made it clear that trustees were not to get involved in the ongoing Student Body Presidential election, but agreed that Boliek did remind the Board of the trustee abuse of power that happened at East Carolina University (ECU);
- acknowledged that he knew better and referenced his own active involvement in disciplining trustees involved in the ECU incident;
- appears to mock Richards for saying that he did not want his “peers to feel threatened, unsafe, nor uncomfortable at the hands of a Trustee”;
- criticized a portion of Richards’ complaint as being “hyperbole and drama”; and
- threatened a defamation complaint.
In subsequent interviews about his behavior, Kotis:
- criticized the Student Body President winner, Teddy Vann, for taking part in a Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure protest and questioned if she “shouldn’t be removed from the student body”;
- resorted to name-calling and attacking students as “snowflakes”; and
- compared his attending the student debate, to students protesting Nikole Hanna-Jones tenure process saying that there was a “significant double standard”.
Parents don’t send their children to one of the top public universities in the country to be, unnecessarily, mocked, harassed, or disparaged by political appointees to the board of trustees.
Marty Kotis was very much out of line to even attend the debate, much less become an adversarial participant in what was a student event. I don’t know what his politics are, but his use of the term “snowflake” gives me a pretty good idea. If Mr. Kotis wants to be part of the thought police, he should run for a seat in the General Assembly, where he would fit right in with the other thought police.
Kotis should resign from BOT and if not, he should be removed promptly!
The primary stakeholders in University decision-making are the students. Everyone else – alumni, faculty, trustees, friends, North Carolina taxpayers – comes second. Mr. Kotis is welcome to have opinions about the student body’s self-elected leadership and their views, and he is welcome to express those opinions in appropriate venues. These would include letters to the Editor of various newspapers (such as the DTH), the Alumni Review, press conferences, and personal calls or emails to student government officials. Actively participating in a candidate debate, for an election in which Mr. Kotis is not eligible to vote, is not at all an appropriate venue. It’s even more reprehensible that his knee-jerk response to the student body President’s disagreement with him is to suggest she should be expelled. This is not leadership. This is reckless self-aggrandizing partisan idiocy, and it emphatically proves that Mr. Kotis is unworthy to hold office as a Trustee of the University of North Carolina. I call for him to resign immediately.
Since Tom Ross was asked to step down, partisan politics has sullied the University, the student experience, the faculty and the administration. Politics has done nothing to enhance the quality of the faculty, the quality of the education, or the reputation of the University as one of the finest state institutions in the country. It’s a sad time.
Marty Kotis must be removed from the BOT immediately for this gross inappropriate behavior by a board member. I am shocked that Kotis is still on the board at this moment. Remove him now.
Time after time I see these OUTRAGEOUS insults to the University, Staff and Students. So what can I do? Tell me how to be more involved?
Thank you for your comment. Here is what you can do:
1. Contact legislators, UNC-CH Trustee Chair Boliek, and members of the Board of Governors to express your concerns.
2. Be sure to vote for state Senate and House candidates who will appoint governors and trustees that:
I aam SOOOO weary of the UNC Board of Trustees. This conduct is intolerable. Any guidance as to how to impact this would be appreciated. I resent that the NCGA has somehow been able to undermine the reputation of our university system. It is one of NC’s treasures.
Thank you for your comment. Here is what you can do:
1. Contact legislators, UNC-CH Trustee Chair Boliek, and members of the Board of Governors to express your concerns.
2. Be sure to vote for state Senate and House candidates who will appoint governors and trustees that:
If the administration is supposed to stay out of how the student body is run, should not the student body stay out how the university is run?
Generally, the student body does stay out of how the university is run; nevertheless UNC, as is true at most universities, enjoys a certain percentage of students who cares about how the university is run and willing to give voice and action to concerns.
And, despite your false equivalency, there is clearly a difference between students speaking truth to power (as well as an obligation to do so) and the BOT acting as a punitive, nosy nanny.
Also, do not neglect that Carolina’s student body president, elected by the student body, is an active, voting member of the BOT. This fact therefore carries with it an expectation of student body involvement in the workings of the BOT.
How the university is run is of intrinsic relevance to students (and faculty/staff). Advocating otherwise, that they should mind their own business, ignores the fact that this is their business and, by and large, their life while at Carolina.