TransparUNCy: New Teach-in + Updates

NEXT TEACH-IN 9/16 (CLE PROVIDED)!

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Hello from the transparUNCy team!

Thank you to everyone who came out to our teach-in this past Monday on freedom of speech and assembly at UNC! If you enjoyed coming or have yet to join us, we’d love to see you this Monday, September 16th at 5pm again in Union 3408! We’ll be running an entirely new teach-in, sparked by the recent release of the class of 2028’s demographics report. With our organization’s origins as the Affirmative Action Coalition at UNC-CH, this report was highly anticipated as UNC’s first post-Affirmative Action class and we were not surprised to see UNC’s class of 2028 is less diverse than the ones before it. We’ll go over how this recent shift is part of a central theme in Carolina’s history: UNC has always been representative of North Carolina’s politics, not its population.

Additionally, if you’d like to read the Affirmative Action Coalition’s statement in collaboration with Mi Pueblo, BSM, Carolina Indian Circle, and UNC AASA, please view our Instagram post below:

We heard from many of you that were curious to learn more about past instances of student assembly and administration’s responses. While we covered a number of examples on Monday, the list truly goes on and we encourage you to dig in and read more about student resistance to injustice on our campus. Below are a few resources we recommend and that we also used to curate the teach-in:

• To Drink from the Well: The Struggle for Racial Equality at the Nation’s Oldest Public University 

• I Raised My Hand to Volunteer

• Students Arrested for Protesting Dow Chemicals

• Shanties Torn Down and Students Arrested

We also addressed the mission statement and foundational claims made by UNC’s very own School of Civic Life and Leadership (SCiLL). Check out transparUNCy episode 7 on Instagram where we explain SCiLL’s conservative origins and stay tuned for a SCiLL teach-in later this semester.

In other SCiLL news, newly hired professor Rita Koganzon published an article in the New York Times earlier this week lamenting the loss of disciplinary and academic standards at universities and preaching that college students must take back their independence. Koganzon praises the repeal of DEI and scolds universities for being too generous towards Pro-Palestinian protesters. However, UNC Professor of History, Jay M. Smith, points out Koganzon’s hypocrisy through how she “escaped the rigors of normal academic hiring practices” and “benefited from affirmative action, but of the unjustifiable kind that works in reverse.” Read Professor Smith’s full op-ed in the DTH below:

Thank you for keeping up with the Affirmative Action Coalition and transparUNCy! We hope to see you Monday!