Early last year, UNC Trustees announced plans for the creation of a new School of Civic Life and Leadership (SCiLL) on a Fox News segment titled ‘Waking Up to Wokeness.’
The accompanying headline read: “UNC looking to counter 'woke' campuses with new school: Creating a 'level playing field.’” In the segment, Trustee Marty Kotis denied allegations of political motives, saying that SCiLL was intended to create an “environment for civil discourse.”
Here’s why that statement is intentionally deceptive and unequivocally false:
Firstly, UNC System governance is political. The Board of Governors (BoG), tasked with “governance of all affairs of the constituent institutions” is elected by the North Carolina General Assembly (NCGA). The BoG selects a system President and roughly half of the Board of Trustees (BoT) at the 16 public universities. At UNC, aside from the Student Body President, the remaining Trustees are chosen directly by the NCGA.
In their current states, the BoG and BoT function as arms of a highly gerrymandered state legislature.
However, the blueprint for SCiLL has origins that can be traced much deeper than the NCGA. Enjoy this blatantly political timeline:
1969: An “era of change” is symbolized by the 36-hour takeover of Cornell’s Willard Straight Hall by members of the Afro-American Society.
John M. Olin, Cornell alum, multimillionaire in weapons manufacturing, and founder of the Olin Foundation, is inspired by the Cornell Uprising “to take his philanthropy in a bold, new direction,” according to the author of his biography.
Olin is scared by a generation of Americans that “were hostile to businessmen and to business enterprise, and indeed had begun to question the ideals of the nation itself."
1978: William Simon, Olin Foundation President, develops Beachhead Theory to fight against the new era of Americans who supported “the well being of ‘consumers,’ the ‘environment,’[and] ‘minorities.’”
The goal of Beachhead Theory is to advance a conservative social agenda and increase corporate profits by influencing faculty and students at American universities. The Olin Foundation would go on to fund outposts of conservative ideology (beachheads) at otherwise liberal schools.
2000: Princeton opens the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, led by Robbie George, the “country’s most influential conservative Christian thinker.” Following the plan laid out by the Olin Foundation, the program is named for a “philosophical or principled identity,” so as not to be perceived politically. Robbie George and the James Madison Program serve as Beachhead Theory’s crown jewel.
2005: The Olin Foundation closes, having spent more than $370 million on college campuses. Many Olin Foundation staff members move to the Bradley Foundation. Notably, Robbie George and BoG member Art Pope currently sit on the Bradley Foundation Board of Directors.
2017: Senior Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences Chris Clemens invites Robbie George to UNC, writing to him in an email, “[I] am intrigued to learn of our administration's interest in housing a conservative center on campus."
Later that year, Robbie George spoke in front of the UNC BoG.
2019: UNC proposes the Program for Public Discourse, a precursor to SCiLL, led by Chris Clemens. The program’s donors are kept secret.
2021: Chris Clemens is promoted to Provost.
2022: UNC introduces the new Ideas in Action curriculum requirements for undergraduates, championed by Provost Clemens. One of the nine Focus Capacities is titled ‘Ethical and Civic Values.’
2023: UNC Trustees announce the creation of the School of Civic Life and Leadership on Fox News. Faculty are outraged; they were not consulted beforehand.
2024: Jed Atkins, an Associate Professor of Classical Studies at Duke, is named the Dean of SCiLL. Atkins is a graduate of the James Madison Program at Princeton and the recipient of a $146,000 grant from the John W. Pope Foundation, of which Art Pope is the Chairman.
A program like SCiLL serves two main purposes. Firstly, influencing classroom narratives can sway the next generation of highly accredited thinkers and academics. Secondly, and more importantly, the selection and tenure of new faculty members will drastically affect the research published under the UNC name.
Republican legislators in NC have criminally underfunded education, but eagerly threw millions at SCiLL. They hope that new SCiLL faculty will publish research to justify their regressive policies. Meanwhile, university administration will continue to silence and threaten progressive, outspoken faculty.
SCiLL’s proclaimed mission of providing “public discourse” and “the cornerstone of a strong democracy” is so blasphemous that it’s only worth addressing briefly.
UNC’s recent history of brutalizing peaceful protesters, surveilling students, censoring professors, and lying about it all exemplifies the opposite of healthy dialogue. The announcement of SCiLL without faculty approval exemplifies the opposite of “strong democracy.”
UNC students have never been more civically engaged than right now. We do not need a school to show us how that’s done.
This alum, former UNC employee, UNC system parent, NC taxpayer and advocate for academic freedom stands with you. You are doing amazing things! Keep going!
This alum, former UNC employee, UNC system parent, NC taxpayer and advocate for academic freedom stands with you. You are doing amazing things! Keep going!