The motion originated with the faculty steering committee, led by Faculty Senate President Dr. Colleen Reilly, who did not respond to a request for comment, nor did most former DEI committee members. However, UNCW Professor Dr. Eleni Pappamihiel, who was a part of the DEI committee, wrote in an email, “The university is attempting to comply with all UNC System regulations and mandates.” The Office of University Relations’ comment was that the vote took place.
The DEI committee’s relatively short lifespan started in September 2020, during a period of time that’s been characterized as a national racial reckoning after the high-profile killings of several Black citizens, including Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, who was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May 2020. The killings prompted wide-ranging discussions and self-reflection for institutions across America.
The former UNCW DEI committee had seven faculty members across various departments on campus, tasked with the following mission: “present recommendations to the Faculty Senate and the administration to reduce barriers to diversity, equity, and inclusion in hiring, support, mentoring, retention, and advancement of faculty, staff, and students; to encourage training and learning opportunities across campus to increase awareness of the experiences of of underrepresented and marginalized groups; to serve as a liaison to any University-wide diversity, equity, and inclusion committees.”
Over the past two academic years, the faculty steering committee had tasked the DEI committee to “reexamine and propose changes to the duties as outlined in the Faculty Handbook to align with institutional changes required by the UNC System.”
When faced with the requirement to comply with the UNC System’s equality policy, which was implemented in May 2024, the committee apparently couldn’t square its existence with it. The equality policy had repealed an earlier policy that explicitly emphasized diversity and inclusion.
The steering committee came to the conclusion, in a document outlining the motion to disband the committee, that “much of the content under duties conflicts with current System Office policy.”
While UNC’s equality policy doesn’t explicitly say that diversity, equity, and inclusion cannot be the subject of a faculty committee, in June 2025, the UNC Board of Governors issued a memorandum about how to comply with the policy, which gives more of the rationale.
The only time DEI is mentioned in the memo from UNC Board of Governors President Wendy Murphy is in reference to the federal executive order in February 2025 mandating a halt to any specific course requirements on diversity, equity, and inclusion. She also referenced the UNC System’s policy on fair admissions, which directs universities to move toward race-blind applications and prohibits them from “pursuing aggregate targets of racial composition.”
