UNC-CH directors give spirited defense of centers

by Jane Stancill, News and Observer, December 11, 2014.

In a debate that at times veered into testy ideological exchange, UNC-Chapel Hill center directors mounted a vigorous justification of their work Thursday before a UNC Board of Governors panel reviewing more than two dozen centers and institutes.

The board working group hosted two days of presentations this week, hearing from nearly 30 such entities across the UNC system that face a detailed review. Thursday’s presentations featured seven from East Carolina University and nine from UNC-CH, including several that largely focus on minority and women’s issues.

Ted Shaw, director of the Center for Civil Rights affiliated with UNC’s law school, said recent protests across the United States underscore why civil rights law is not just a history lesson.

“People tell us that the civil rights era is over, the work is unnecessary, we’re in a post-racial colorblind America,” Shaw said. “Look at what’s happened over the last few weeks. We don’t resolve these issues best in the streets. We resolve them through courts of law.”

Shaw’s center, founded by the late civil rights icon Julius Chambers, trains law students by working on civil rights cases. It receives no state money.

But UNC board member Steven Long took issue with what he said was a lack of diverse points of view at the center. He questioned whether the university should be in the business of advocacy, and charged that the center was involved in marches.

UNC Law Dean Jack Boger said the center had been careful to keep its distance from the weekly demonstrations at the legislature, called “Moral Monday” by organizers.

“I’ve read your materials,” said Long, who was on the board of the conservative Civitas Institute, according to a 2013 news release. “There is no diversity of opinion in that center.”

Shaw responded: “We are unapologetically representing clients in cases ... We’re civil rights advocates. We have a point of view.”

Boger pointed out that the law school’s Banking Institute was created to support the banking industry in North Carolina. “We don’t ask that center to consider socialism as an alternative or to talk about the dissolution of large banks,” he said. Boger also pointed out that public health professors advocate against sugary drinks in the fight against obesity.

Poverty center

Gene Nichol, law professor and director of UNC-CH’s Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity, said the center was “honored to be among the list of threatened centers.” The outspoken professor, who has written opinion pieces critical of Republican lawmakers and Gov. Pat McCrory, said of the board’s review: “It is hard not to worry that there is a potent ideological agenda at work.”

The poverty center has been in the cross hairs of lawmakers for some time. It was originally tied to former U.S. Sen. John Edwards, a Democrat.

Nichol said he had been called into the law school dean’s office three times during the last legislative session and told of threats by Republican politicians to fire him, shut down the center or move it to UNC Pembroke.