Letter from Undersigned Carolina Law Faculty to UNC Board of Trustees

The following letter was sent to Richard Y. Stevens, UNC Board of Trustees Chair, on June 24, 2021.

Dear Mr. Stevens,

We join with our colleagues at UNC to urge the Board of Trustees to review and approve Nikole Hannah-Jones’ appointment as a tenured faculty member in the Hussman School of Journalism at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. The BOT decision to defer consideration of her appointment as a Knight Chair with tenure renews community concerns about the racial hierarchies that inform policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

We wish to additionally state our concerns with regard to the failure of the Board of Governors to renew our colleague, Eric Muller, to the UNC Press Board. Professor Muller has served as Chair of the UNC Press Board in exemplary fashion. We cannot but suspect that the failure of the BOG to approve his reappointment is an attempt to single him out for his careful scholarly attention to matters of law, race and history within the UNC System and at UNC-Chapel Hill.

The actions by the BOT and BOG have undermined the morale of faculty and undermine the intellectual credibility and moral integrity of the University.

Undersigned members of the faculty at UNC School of Law
David Ardia
John Charles Boger
Patricia Bryan
Ellie Campbell
Andrew Chin
John Coyle
Maxine Eichner
Barbara Fedders
Deborah Gerhardt
Michael Gerhardt
Jeffrey Hirsch
Donald Hornstein
Melissa Jacoby
Thomas Kelley
Joseph Kennedy
Joan Krause
Holning Lau
William Marshall
Jonas Monast
Eric Muller
Gene Nichol
Donna Nixon
Leigh Osofsky
Mary-Rose Papandrea
Beth Posner
Kathryn Sabbeth
Maria Savasta-Kennedy
Richard Saver
Theodore Shaw
Rick Su
Mark Weidemaier
Deborah Weissman
Erika Wilson