Commentary by Gene Nichol
This past July will be the last in the deanship of Dr. Van Dempsey of the University of North Carolina-Wilmington’s School of Education. That’s tough news for UNC-W and the UNC System. Once again, an important administrator was forced to choose between the truth and the commands of ideologically driven superiors. Dempsey did something that is, by now, exceeding rare. He told the truth, knowing he’d likely be fired for it. He should receive a medal rather than being shown the door.
Dempsey’s departure stems from the decision to give Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) a 2023 Razor Walker Award. The move came with controversy, and in June Dempsey admitted to the Assembly that UNC-W Chancellor Aswani Volety had instructed him to make sure a political conservative received one of the honors. Dempsey asked Volety what would happen if they went through the standard committee process and Lee wasn’t chosen. “I would make sure you land in a good place,” Volety replied.
Dempsey also told the Assembly he knew that admitting to the press he’d received the directive from the chancellor could cost him. It did. UNC-W issued a statement indicating “Dr. Dempsey is leaving his position as dean, effective July 14.” Keeping to form, the statement itself was deceptive. Dempsey explained, “it implies I chose to leave the position. That is not true.” A Port City Daily public records request also revealed the selection committee had not recommended honoring Lee.
Choosing between Republican political mandate and one’s personal integrity is part of the essential job description for high administrators at UNC in these dark days.
Our Chancellor at Chapel Hill has been required to do it regularly. When our Board of Trustees denied tenure to Nicole HannahJones, in one of the most high-visibility acts of racial discrimination in recent history, Kev in Guskiewicz refused to utter a word against it. He feared, if he did, he’d lose his job. Hannah-Jones later refused to accept any appointment at Carolina, explaining she couldn’t work at “a university whose leadership permitted such conduct and has done nothing to disavow it.”
More recently, the same Board of Trustees moved—contrary to all theories of academic governance—to create a new school and curriculum of “Civic Life and Leadership.” Again, Guskiewicz refused to use his authority or his voice to oppose it. No tradition of higher education is more deeply rooted than the dictate that faculty controls the curriculum. But not at UNC. I’m sure our chancellor thinks he’s keeping his powder dry for something more important than racial equality and academic freedom. But I can’t, for the life of me, think of what that might be. Chancellor Volety shows Guskiewicz isn’t alone.
It all reminds me of the various Trump officials who helped him trash the Constitution, saying if they didn’t aid and abet the destruction, Trump would fire them and appoint someone even worse. Maybe so, but that’s the excuse that forgives all sins. Every single one.
It was one of the high honors of my life to know the late Chancellor Bill Aycock—who displayed such bravery in the 1960s fighting the NC Speaker Ban. Aycock was a storied law teacher. When I asked how he managed the courage to resist, he explained he told Bill Friday, in accepting the job: “I don’t know if I’ll last a week or 10 years, but I’m going to do what I think is right and, if they fire me, I’ll happily go back and teach my classes.” Those were the days.
Gene Nichol is Boyd Tinsley Distinguished Professor of Law at the UNC School of Law and in 2015 started the North Carolina Poverty Research Fund after the UNC Board of Governors closed the state-funded Poverty Center for publishing articles critical of the governor and General Assembly