UNC President Hans warns Chapel Hill trustees to back off. Will they? | Opinion

Roger Perry helped found the Coalition for Carolina out of concern that MAGA types had taken over at UNC-Chapel Hill.

But when I spoke with Perry on Tuesday, he sounded like a man no longer fearful about Visigoths at the gate of the ivory tower. Perry, a Chapel Hill developer and former chair of the UNC-CH Board of Trustees, might even be called optimistic.

His newfound confidence that reactionary Republicans won’t damage the nation’s oldest public university arises from a memo sent by UNC System President Peter Hans and UNC Board of Governors Chair Randy Ramsey to John Preyer, the chairman of the UNC-CH Board of Trustees.

The Jan. 12 memo, which only recently became public, was sent the day that Lee Roberts, a former UNC Board of Governors member and former budget director for Gov. Pat McCrory, became the university’s interim chancellor.

The memo’s message to Preyer and other trustees was clear: Butt out.

Hans told the trustees to be advisers – not bosses – and give Roberts room to lead. That meant no more efforts to direct “matters of administration or executive action..” That would seem to include a stop to the trustees imposing their politics on the university’s curriculum, its hiring practices and even the award of honorary degrees.

Perry is impressed with this show of institutional discipline by a system president many regard as too eager to please Republican lawmakers and their UNC appointees.

“With Peter Hans, I didn’t have high expectations, but I think he has done a fantastic job,” Perry told me. “I think his board (the Board of Governors) is reacting to his lead and clearly seeing that (the Board of Trustees) needs to be reined in.”

Mimi Chapman, a co-founder of the Coalition for Carolina and a former chair of the faculty who has objected to attempts by the trustees to usurp control of the university, joined in the celebration of Hans’ brushback of the trustees.

“Reading this memorandum meant an awful lot to us,” Chapman said in a blog post. “For two years, we have been drawing attention to how governance has been out of balance on our campus. As a researcher, I’m not going to infer direct causation, but we think our work is making a difference.”

So the ideological war at Chapel Hill over? Republicans appointees and lawmakers who see the university as indoctrinating young people with liberal views will stay in their lane and respect the faculty’s role in shared governance?

That’s unlikely. A short legislative session starts later this month. Perry and Chapman would do well to remember Mark Twain’s admonition: “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”

That’s particularly true with a veto-proof Republican majority. UNC-CH Trustee Jim Blaine has said the Board of Governors or the legislature is likely to move soon to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the UNC System.

Opponents of affirmative action in admissions will be watching to see that the university complies with the Supreme Court decision that barred the use of race in deciding who is admitted.

There’s a chance for new controversies over race, LGBTQ rights and free speech related to the conflict in Gaza.

Whether the restraint Hans is trying to impose holds depends on whether Republican trustees agree to limit their reach.

But for now Perry thinks the rancor over the removal of the Silent Sam Confederate statue and the Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure dispute and the imposition of a School of Civic Life and Leadership and the attack on diversity, inclusion and equity programs may have reached a Pax Hans.

“It’s an encouraging and refreshing change,” Perry said. “Let’s see how well they keep it.”

Maybe the change will last, but it’s too early to declare victory or even a truce. Republican state lawmakers thrive on division and controversy. For them, the liberal bastion at Chapel Hill remains an inviting target. It will take more than a memo to stop their assaults on its independence.

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-404-7583, or nbarnett@ newsobserver.com