UNC-Chapel Hill is suspending part of its mandatory curriculum around diversity to avoid any potential noncompliance with President Donald Trump’s executive order scrubbing the federal government’s recognition and participation in such efforts.
UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts and Provost Chris Clemens shared a message with the campus community Monday evening, saying the compliance removes the requirement of needing to take a class in the “U.S. Diversity” for students under the Making Connections general education curriculum. The change only affects students first enrolled before fall 2022, when the university adopted a new curriculum — IDEAs in Action — which it has transitioned to for its other students.
The wider directive, which was first shared with chancellors in a memo from UNC System Senior Vice President for Legal Affairs Andrew Tripp on Wednesday, Feb. 7, applies to all UNC System schools. Asheville Watchdog first reported the memo’s existence after UNC Asheville’s chancellor sent an alert to student detailing the suspension of their own existing graduation requirements related to “diversity intensive courses.” In the message to the chancellors, Tripp wrote the risk of having $1.4 billion of federal funding pulled from the system schools over noncompliance was “simply too great to defer action.”
The suspension of the curriculum requirement does not negate the course credit offered to students. The UNC System said during this suspension, the course or requirement will be converted into a general elective requirement. Additionally, any student enrolled in a course for the spring 2025 semester to satisfy these requirements or curriculum focus can either remain in the class or withdraw without a penalty on their record. The memo also clarified the suspension does not affect the university or faculty’s ability to offer and teach the course, as teaching the concepts is allowed “so long as no student is compelled to enroll in such a course as part of a mandatory requirement.”
Roberts and Clemens said UNC-Chapel Hill’s Registrar will reach out to all affected students to discuss their options in the coming days, after which they can connect with their academic advisors to ensure all other degree requirements and credit hours are not impacted.
Other potential noncompliance from the executive order was addressed in the spring of 2024, when the UNC System Board of Governors changed the phrasing of a policy promoting “diversity and inclusion” on its campuses to “equality” — a move championed by President Peter Hans as a measure to improve “institutional neutrality.” He said the goal is to ensure administrations of the schools are not interpreted as “partisan actors” on issues and not seeking to “settle debates,” but instead host and enrich the communities’ abilities to have discussions on differing opinions and challenging topics. The change in policy led to dozens of position cuts across the system, including 20 positions eliminated at UNC’s flagship campus and 27 employees with realigned roles.
Further changes could be coming for UNC’s newer IDEAs in Action curriculum, which Roberts and Clemens said in their message on Monday. There is a ‘Power, Difference and Inequality’ focus for undergraduate degrees — which includes dozens of courses that share an underlying goal of having students “engage with the histories, perspectives, politics, intellectual traditions, and/or expressive cultures of populations and communities that have historically been disempowered,” according to the curriculum website.
“Moving forward, we will continue to study the guidance to determine the impacts under the IDEAs in Action general education curriculum and will communicate with schools and departments if there are further required changes for the summer and fall semesters,” the university administrators wrote.
Featured image via AP Photo/Gerry Broome.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
Comments on Chapelboro are moderated according to our Community Guidelines