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Two weeks after introducing a policy that allowed administrators to secretly record faculty members during class, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill chancellor Lee Roberts told faculty he would nix the rule.
“The whole idea was to create clarity and reassurance,” Roberts said during a Faculty Senate meeting Friday. “That policy clearly has not achieved that aim.” Faculty members applauded at the news. During a Q&A, Roberts confirmed that no faculty members will be surreptitiously recorded until—and if—a new policy is put in place. Administrators will continue to evaluate whether the university needs such a policy, he said.
The pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments that sprang up on many campuses in spring 2024 created unprecedented conditions for an aggressive crackdown on student speech. Unlike during previous protest movements, such as the Vietnam War, when most students took one side of an issue against the adult establishment, the pro-Palestinian movement pitted pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian students—and faculty—against one another, fueling tensions that spilled into classrooms, dorms and quads.
That unrest collided squarely with President Donald Trump’s re-election and his second-term agenda, which included targeted attacks on both immigrants and “woke” higher ed institutions.
On Feb. 19, the University of Texas System’s Board of Regents approved new rules governing how faculty members can and cannot teach about “controversial” topics. FIRE is concerned that the guidance’s vague language, as well as the backdrop of censorship in Texas, will cause faculty to self-censor.
The official charged with carrying out the Trump administration’s higher-education agenda has a particular diagnosis for what’s ailing colleges.
“We are here because the value of higher education is in question by too many — and at the center of that is our quality-assurance system,” Nicholas Kent, under secretary of education, said in a Tuesday interview. “It is undeniable that accreditors are failing institutions, they’re failing students, and they’re failing taxpayers.”
The Manhattan Institute offers a simple proposal: state legislatures should expand oversight of their public universities. With powers clarified by lawmakers and a new mandate to exercise their existing powers, university board members can act as a counterweight to the excesses of university faculty and administrators—specifically, through greater involvement in the hiring of administrators, the approval of faculty lines, and the creation of core curricula.
A judge declared a mistrial on Friday in a case of five current and former Stanford University students related to the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests when demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the school president's office.
The case was tried in Santa Clara County Superior Court against five defendants charged with felony vandalism and felony conspiracy to trespass. The rest previously accepted plea deals or diversion programs. The jury was deadlocked. It voted nine to three to convict on the felony charge of vandalism and eight to four to convict on the felony charge to trespass. Jurors failed to reach a verdict after deliberations.
