Nearly three years ago I wrote about a mandatory diversity training that took place at UNC-Chapel Hill after the conservative paper on campus got an audio recording of the event.

Ms. Parle started the presentation with an ‘indigenous land recognition,’ after which the hundreds of Greek attendees were advised that they should make a habit of repeating the political catechism in their daily lives and taught how to do so. After establishing her lecture was on stolen land, Ms. Parle asked students their feelings about ‘the system.’ Were they warm towards it? Apathetic? Or, the last option: ready to dismantle it?

The first topics covered by Ms. Parle were the role of identity and the social constructs which define them, a subject which introduced the presentation and remained a focal point throughout. She emphasized that identity is a primary factor in life experience, explaining that identity guides “the way you navigate the world.” Students were instructed to write their intersectional identities, drawing from those provided which included characteristics like sex, (not to be confused with gender, of which both expression and identity were listed), sexual orientation, body size, and race...

“There’s no way the university should be funding [the event] in my opinion,” one attendee told Carolina Review on the condition of anonymity. The same student was disturbed by the “clear political undertones” present in a mandatory University event.

It took a while but today that anonymous student got his wish. Today the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees cut DEI spending by more than $2 million and transferred the money to the campus police.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees approved a change that would divert $2.3 million of diversity funding to go toward public safety and policing at a special meeting to address the university’s budget. The board’s vote would only impact UNC-Chapel Hill’s diversity funding, which could result in the loss of its diversity office.

The vote to shift more funding to public safety comes as continued pro-Palestinian protests on UNC’s campus have resulted in several arrests in recent weeks. The budget committee vice-chair Marty Kotis said law enforcement has already been forced to react to protests, but they need more funding to keep the university “safe from a larger threat.”

“It’s important to consider the needs of all 30,000 students, not just the 100 or so that may want to disrupt the university’s operations,” Kotis said. “It takes away resources for others.”

The board said this move had been under discussion even before the campus protests which popped up over the past couple weeks. Still, it sounds like the protests were the last straw.

Many members specifically mentioned recent pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus. Last month, police detained more than 30 people at an encampment where protesters removed the U.S. flag and replaced it with a Palestinian one.

“When you destroy property or you take down the U.S flag and you have to put up gates around it — that costs money,” Kotis said. “It’s imperative that we have the proper resources for law enforcement to protect the campus.”

He's referring of course to this moment when a group of students refused to let the protesters take down the US flag.

Brendan Rosenblum, a junior and Jewish student at UNC-Chapel Hill, had water bottles thrown at him as he stood in the middle of the quad by with an Israeli flag while protesters tried to replace an American flag with a Palestinian one. Classes today have just been cancelled. pic.twitter.com/hUkPTXtLxj

— Bryan Anderson (@BryanRAnderson) April 30, 2024

The move by UNC-Chapel Hill comes just ahead of an expected cut of DEI programs at the entire UNC system.

The Committee on University Governance within the University of North Carolina Board of Governors that oversees 17 schools, voted in less than four minutes to reverse and replace a policy related to DEI. The full board of 24 members is to vote on the matter again next month, and if approved, the repeal would take effect immediately.

If the policy is fully repealed, the UNC system could join another major public university — the University of Florida in Gainesville — in dismantling its diversity office. Florida’s flagship university announced in a memo last month that it was scrapping its office and shifting its funding for faculty recruitment instead.

The vote of the full board will take place next week and it's likely DEI will be eliminated from campuses statewide. So Chapel Hill is just a little ahead of the curve but moving the money to campus police is a nice touch. Hopefully other universities will follow this example.

VIDEO: Today in a special meeting of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees, the budget committee chair made a motion to peel out the university's $2.3 million allocated for DEI and move the funds to public safety.

The motion was unanimously approved. pic.twitter.com/CRaOtRQKXu

— John Sailer (@JohnDSailer) May 13, 2024