The UNC System has responded to a "national call to action" from the federal government.
Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon issued a letter to universities across the country asking leaders to affirm their commitment to several principles of "academic excellence" to help "restore public trust in higher education."
McMahon asked university leaders to “reaffirm their commitments” to transparency, merit in admissions, free speech, and open inquiry, and to prioritizing American interests.
Both UNC System President Peter Hans and UNC Board of Governors Chair Kellie Hunt Blue responded with a letter this week on behalf of all public university leaders in North Carolina. It cited both longstanding and controversial changes to UNC System policy — from a nearly decade long tuition hold, elimination of DEI initiatives, civil discourse investments, and efforts to mitigate "undue foreign influence."
One of the most recent changes is the UNC System's public syllabi policy. Last year, Hans revoked universities' individual power to decide who owns a syllabus amid a political push to make the course document public. Starting this fall, every public university professor's syllabus must be published in a searchable online database.
Hans and Blue told McMahon this change promotes "transparency and accountability" around attaining a public university degree.
The letter also summarized several changes to the admissions process, including the implementation of "race-blind" practices so that admissions criteria are "not proxies for race."
Since the 2023 Supreme Court decision outlawing race-conscious admissions, the number of underrepresented students on the UNC System's more selective campuses has varied.
At UNC-Chapel Hill, the total percentage of underrepresented students has been slowly declining since a peak three years ago. However, NC State's overall representation seems to be increasing, with Hispanic students growing the fastest the last couple of years.
Meanwhile, the federal government is currently investigating East Carolina University's Brody School of Medicine for "alleged racial discrimination in admissions."
Federal officials have also targeted UNC-Chapel Hill for its foreign research partnerships. Carolina is among a list of 30 institutions – including Duke University – that must audit their collaborations with "foreign entities of concern" by the end of the month or possibly risk losing eligibility for federal research funding.
Hans and Blue noted in their letter that the UNC System has "taken action" to address the potential of "undue foreign influence" on public university campuses. This includes holding security briefings about threats, working with federal partners to "safeguard" science, and mitigating risks with foreign talent recruitment programs. Toward the end of the letter, the two also tout the UNC System's investments in national defense.
"We welcome federal accountability that is clear, lawful, focused on broadly supported public needs, and respectful of constitutional rights, state governance, academic professionalism, and the distinct missions of public institutions," Hans and Blue said in closing the letter.
Critics have called McMahon's "national call to action" a "Compact 2.0" for higher education institutions. This references a proposal the Trump administration posed to universities last year, called the "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education."
The deal promised preferential treatment for federal funding if university leaders agreed to a set of demands from requiring institutional neutrality, limiting international student enrollment, to establishing protections for conservative ideas. UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Lee Roberts refused to sign it.
He's one of 17 chancellors cc'd on Hans and Blue's correspondence.
WUNC partners with Open Campus and NC Local on higher education coverage.
