Darrell Allison’s Departure makes the UNC Board of Governors Even Less Diverse
The UNC System Board of Governors at their headquarters here in Chapel Hill. Darrel Allison, one of two Black members of the board, left last week, citing “personal reasons.” Source.
The University of North Carolina System Board of Governors (BoG), elected by the North Carolina General Assembly, has long been a controversial group among the populations of UNC schools. Their infamous decisions have not always aligned with the interests of the UNC-Chapel Hill student body and faculty, especially those concerning the former Confederate monument Silent Sam.
Recently, Board member Darrell Allison announced his resignation from the board, citing “personal reasons” in his open letter announcement. Allison was the one of three black members of the Board and one of the few non-Republicans on the board. He headed the Racial Equity Task Force, which was established in June this year following the Black Lives Matter protests and murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. This task force had three main goals: creating inclusive campuses, increasing student enrollment and outcomes, and recruiting inclusive and open-minded leaders.
The Board of Governors is disproportionately white, male, and conservative; it does not match the demographics of the students it represents. Allison’s resignation widened this gap even further. With the fate and representation of thousands of UNC system students at stake, one must consider whether the Board has a responsibility to fill Allison’s seat with a nonwhite member.
To properly answer this question, it is important to analyze the Board’s actions in recent years, especially those affecting minority populations. In the fall of 2018, the Silent Sam statue was toppled by protestors from its location on McCorkle Place. Once it was toppled, one major question arose: what should the university do with the statue? There were a few proposals; the first one being to house the statue in an on-campus history center. This proposal was rejected by students and ultimately, the Board of Governors. However, in fall of 2019, the Board of Governors arranged a deal with the state chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans to give them $2.5 million to preserve the statue. This was a controversial decision; the Board was not transparent about its plans to make a deal with the group, which had called the deal a “strategic victory.” Students were also outraged at the decision, deeming it dehumanizing and disrespectful, especially to minority students.
The Board of Governors’ involvement with UNC’s response to COVID-19 was also controversial. When UNC made the decision to pivot to online learning, the UNC system president Peter Hans, who was elected by the Board of Governors, blamed students for the failure of the reopening process to combat the spread of COVID on campus and allow in-person classes. However, before classes even started, students, faculty, and public health officials worked tirelessly to advocate for the UNC campus to remain closed and for classes to be online. Their demands were ignored. With a virus that disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic people, and poses heightened risk to the largely nonwhite staff who prop up the UNC campus, the Board of Governors and the UNC administration’s decision to attempt an in-person semester in the fall failed the students and faculty of Chapel Hill, disproportionately so the nonwhite ones.
The lack of racial diversity on the administration board is increasingly problematic, especially among the heightened racial conflict and consciousness in the United States - and right here in North Carolina - at this moment in history. UNC needs to recognize this and change their policies and the demographics of its leadership to better represent their students. Following Allison’s departure as one of the few nonwhite members of the Board, and an active advocate for nonwhite UNC students, the Board of Governors needs to elect a member with a similar commitment to increasing the inclusion and equity of students of color.