CV NEWS FEED // The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) will allocate over two million dollars from diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives to bolster the campus police.
The decision comes in the wake of massive pro-Palestine protests and encampments on UNC’s campus.
Per Axios, the school’s “Board of Trustees voted on Monday to move $2.3 million from funding [DEI] programs at the university and instead put it toward public safety effort.”
“The diversion of the money from DEI programs at UNC comes a month after the entire UNC System moved to repeal and replace a diversity and inclusion policy in favor of a policy that it says maintains ‘institutional neutrality,’” the Axios report continued:
The replacement policy the UNC System is considering does not include outlined responsibilities for diversity staff. It calls for individual schools to comply by changing job titles and position descriptions in those areas and to note “reductions in force and spending.”
Scholar and prominent DEI critic Christopher Rufo indicated that the UNC board’s vote was unanimous.
“It’s not 2020 anymore,” Rufo wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “‘Defund DEI, refund the police’ is the winning slogan of the day.”
“Good work, UNC trustees!” he added.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) President Kristen Waggoner called the UNC board vote a “[s]mart move.”
“DEI policies have spawned more division than ‘inclusion’ on university campuses,” she wrote. “More schools should follow suit.”
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk wrote: “Another domino falls in war against the DEI bigots. Congratulations UNC Chapel Hill!”
Former collegiate swimmer and women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines agreed, calling the trustees’ vote a “[g]reat move.”
“The word progressive is constantly thrown around, but THIS is what progress is,” she wrote on X shortly after the decision was announced.
Conservative journalist Andy Ngo wrote: “DEI teaches hatred & resentment against the US, and brainwashes people into supporting leftist violence.”
Earlier this month, a protest at UNC made headlines after a group of fraternity brothers protected an American flag on campus from student demonstrators who wished to remove it.
FOX News reported at the time:
Anti-Israel agitators on Tuesday morning initially replaced the American flag — which had been flying at half-mast after four Charlotte officers were killed in the line of duty Monday — with a Palestinian flag before UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts stepped in with law enforcement officers to return the American flag.
When activists, some of whom were not affiliated with Chapel Hill, tried to take the flag down a second time, a group of students, including fraternity brothers, stepped in to stop Old Glory from hitting the ground. A photo of the moment went [viral] on social media.
UNC trustee Marty Kotis cited the incident in explaining his vote in favor of allocating funds from DEI to campus police.
“We talk about peaceful protests, but when you destroy property, or you take down the US flag, and you have to put gates around it that cost money, or deploy officers to do that,” Kotis said. “North Carolinians are watching all this and they are not happy.”
“And I think it’s imperative that we have proper resources for our law enforcement to protect the campus,” he added. “And that means our property, and that means our flag as well.”
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