The University of North Carolina System is no longer requiring students to take courses focused on diversity, equity or inclusion as a condition of graduation, the system’s top lawyer told chancellors of system universities in a memo.
The move is a response to a Jan. 21 executive order issued by President Donald Trump that seeks to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion instruction from public schools.
Other WRAL Top Stories
The order directs federal agencies to eliminate that instruction, collect data on it, evaluate it and make recommendations on what to do about it.
While UNC System schools could still offer such courses, “all general education requirements and major-specific requirements mandating completion of course credits related to diversity, equity, and inclusion … are suspended,” Andrew Tripp, senior vice president and general counsel at the University of North Carolina System, wrote in the Feb. 5 memo.
Last year, the UNC System's Board of Governors cut the system's diversity, equity and inclusion policy and replaced it with one that emphasizes neutrality. Many of the other issues addressed by Trump’s order are covered in university policy, Tripp wrote.
“The Equality Policy reaffirms the University’s commitment and duty to abide by federal and state law prohibiting discrimination and upholds the University’s commitment to institutional neutrality, academic freedom, and freedom of expression,” Tripp wrote.
UNC schools received about $1.4 billion in federal research funding in the 2023-24 fiscal year — about 62% of all university research funds and about 13% of the UNC budget.
“Even though some form of additional federal guidance is expected, and the law in this area remains unsettled, the risk of jeopardizing over $1.4 billion in critical federal research funding is simply too great to defer action,” Tripp wrote.