North Carolina public universities board repeals policy in vote that likely cuts diversity jobs

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina’s public university system board voted Thursday to repeal a nearly five-year-old diversity, equity and inclusion policy, meaning its 17 schools will likely join other major universities in cutting diversity programs and jobs. Hans said the board would trust university chancellors to reinvest the funds, but those initiatives wouldn’t include policing and public safety — a funding area that the board of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the system’s flagship university, decided to reallocate millions of DEI funds from next year’s budget to. The system’s legal counsel advised the university board that it could not make line-item changes such as the DEI cut to the university budget, but they “chose to disregard that advice,” he said. North Carolina’s Senate leader Phil Berger, whose chamber along with the House elects the board’s voting members, said Thursday that DEI policies are “completely different from the average person’s understanding of the need for diversity, for equity, for inclusion.” “The concerns that have been expressed about DEI — not just in North Carolina, not just in North Carolina universities — but across the nation are legitimate concerns,” he told reporters before the vote.