The North Carolina General Assembly took a highly unusual step by mandating the creation of a center for conservatives values on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Typically, new programs or centers are instituted by the institution or the faculty, not the legislature. Apparently the Republican supermajorities think that conservative college students are snowflakes who must be protected from divergent views and carefully indoctrinated.

When the General Assembly’s Republican majority revealed and passed a new budget in a whirlwind 48 hours last week, it set an aggressive timeline for an unprecedented new school at UNC-Chapel Hill.

The budget provides $2 million in funding in each of the next two fiscal years for the new School of Civic Life and Leadership, described as early as 2017 by its supporters and architects as a “conservative center.” The budget provision also dictates a few specifics:l

  • UNC-Chapel Hill’s Provost Chris Clemens must name the school’s first dean by Dec. 31, 2023 — just over three months from now.
  • The school must hire, with that dean’s approval, “at least 10 and no more than 20 faculty members from outside the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill” — all with permanent tenure or eligibility for permanent tenure.
  • The UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees must report to the legislature’s Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee and the Fiscal Research Division on progress made toward establishing the School of Civic Life and Leadership and factors affecting the long-term sustainability of the new school.

It is already unprecedented for a new school at a UNC System campus to be instigated not by the faculty or administration — but rather by the legislature and its political appointees on the system’s board of governors and board of trustees — faculty representatives told Newsline this week. They said they had never heard of state government mandating the number of faculty members, whether they will be tenured and how and when they will be hired.

“It’s demoralizing, to be honest,” said Beth Moracco, a professor in the university’s Department of Health Behavior and chair of the faculty. “In my experience it’s very unusual, for a number of reasons, to have that level of direction in legislation for hiring at the university. I haven’t ever seen anything quite like it. And it’s concerning.”

Open the link to read the rest of the article.