All 16 UNC system schools were required to dissolve all DEI initiatives by September 1, 2024
By Allyse Evans
The start of the Fall 2024 semester at UNCP looked and felt different this year for many students. In May, the UNC Board of Governors decided on new UNC system legislation that effectively banned all diversity, inclusion, and equity programs. This new policy rolled back the former 2019 policy requiring UNC schools to implement diversity and inclusion programs. UNCP and all other UNC system schools must verify that they “fully comply with the university’s commitment to institutional neutrality and nondiscrimination.”
This new policy stressed that all UNC institutions must enforce “institutional neutrality,” Peter Hans, UNC System President, said at the May policy meeting. “Our role is to host those debates, to inform them, to make them richer and more constructive. That’s a vital responsibility, and we can’t fulfill it if our institutions are seen as partisan actors in one direction or another.”
The argument for institutional neutrality is that formal DEI programs sanctioned by UNC institutions place universities on one side of the political aisle. Hans later said in the same meeting, “Higher education does not exist to settle the most difficult debates in our democracy,” the debate here being the necessity for DEI programs.
UNCP African American Studies Professor, Misty Harper, argued against “institutional neutrality.” Harper said that UNCP doesn’t exist in a neutral space.
“We were founded for American Indian education”, Harper said that the fabric of UNCP is inclusion.
The former Inclusion and Diversity website highlighted this in its mission statement “At UNC Pembroke, diversity and inclusion has long been part of the university’s mission of service.” Many UNCP students and faculty argue that the new governor’s decision goes against the long-standing traditions of UNCP as a historically Native American university.
The UNCP programs that have been dissolved are OSID, the former Office of Student Inclusion and Diversity. According to the UNCP DEI website, these programs were created to “daily [strive] to provide a work and learning environment where all faculty, staff and students feel welcome and supported.”
The former student and faculty OSID employees have been transferred to different university programs and departments. Tazanna Cummings, former OSID marketing/ communications and community chair, is currently a Student Works employee. Cummings still plans on campus events for student organizations but student outreach and the freedom to plan and implement training and events has been decreased greatly. Cummings previous work at OSID integrated many different on-campus communities, which included race, age, ethnicity, sex, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, ability, faith, religion, national origin, citizenship, social and economic class, ideology and other identities. OSID encompassed several different communities and held different events to support UNCP community members.
Harper said that UNCP will continue to find ways to continue diversity and inclusion programs, just not formally. UNCP could possibly find a way to conduct former OSID work under a different program umbrella. This could allow for many communities to still meet and interact just without the previous University’s inclusion and diversity programs. View the UNC Board of Governor’s 2024 DEI policy