This week’s meeting of the UNC Board of Governors gets underway Thursday in Asheville – and while the board is not expected to vote on a proposal to gut the UNC Center for Civil Rights, supporters of the center say they’ll be there anyway, just in case.

Board members are considering a proposal that would ban the center from engaging in litigation. (The center does other work as well, but litigation is central to its mission as a part of UNC’s law school.) A vote was initially slated for this week, but it’s been postponed to allow new members to join the board first.

But Mark Dorosin, the center’s managing attorney, says he’s not entirely convinced the board won’t vote this week. In fact, he says, one board member already moved for a vote on the proposal at a teleconference on Tuesday, even though the item wasn’t on the agenda. He says the motion got rejected – but only because board members said they wanted to wait for the process to play out as scheduled.

Dorosin spoke Wednesday with WCHL’s Aaron Keck.

 

Steve Long is the board member who wrote the proposal; he says it’s meant to target the center directly. (Long’s proposal was initially more broadly-worded, but he recently revised it in response to concerns that it might also prohibit law schools from having legal clinics.)

Assuming there’s no vote this week, the board’s Education Planning Committee is scheduled to consider the proposal at its next meeting, which will be on Tuesday, August 1, at noon in the Center for School Leadership Development in Chapel Hill.

If you’re interested in the issue and you want to weigh in, you can send Board members an email at: public@bog.northcarolina.edu.