An Open Letter to the UNC Board of Trustees
Reed Rubinstein, Adam Kissel, Diane Auer Jones, Robert S. Eitel, Jim Blew & Mitchell M. Zais
February 10, 2023
Dear Members of the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill Board of Trustees:
We are former senior appointees of the U.S. Department of Education, under two administrations, with decades of experience in federal postsecondary education policy. We would like to take this opportunity to commend you on your resolution recommending the development of a School of Civic Life and Leadership at UNC. We welcome these plans for an academic unit devoted to cultivating skills of civil discourse, dialogue, and deliberation.
We also write to voice our objection to the arbitrary and impromptu threat issued against UNC by Belle Wheelan, President of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). Although she admits that she has not even read your resolution, she has threatened to put UNC on “warning” status due to your effort to provide guidance to your university on matters related to the academic program and curriculum. You are democratically accountable and duly sworn trustees of the university, responsible for its flourishing and service to the public, yet Wheelan demands of you, “Eyes on, hands off.” She proposes for you the role of mere spectators at the university entrusted by the legislature and North Carolina law to your stewardship.
