In latest DEI decision, UNC has chosen to deny the past | Opinion

UNC and DEI

The writer is a rising senior at UNC-CH and a member of the Affirmative Action Coalition.

The repeal of DEI is not a defense of UNC’s troubled history. It is an attempt to drown it, prevent it from ever resurfacing.

For 160 years, UNC functioned explicitly for the success of white students. It has done so implicitly ever since. As a majority white, majority male Board of Trustees diverts DEI funds to the university police who violently stifle student dissent, this has never been more evident.

In the decades-long struggle for freedom between people of color and police, UNC has chosen police. In the broader moral debate about what a society must do to reckon with its past, UNC has chosen denial.

Julian Taylor, Chapel Hill

Voter ID

Regarding “What I told federal court about NC’s discriminatory voter ID law,” (May 13 Opinion):

I couldn’t agree more about obstacles erected by our new voter ID laws. I am experiencing them with my 93-year-old mother who moved from Illinois a few years ago. Once she became a resident, she easily voted in North Carolina — until now.

She doesn’t have a driver’s license, and I have been navigating numerous encumbrances to schedule her a state ID appointment through DMV. The only available appointments are three months from now, and I had to go through Vital Statistics to get her birth certificate and marriage license — at a cost of $108.

The voter ID law is a bigger fraud than false narratives about hundreds of dead people voting and others voting multiple times. What if my mother lived alone, had no way to get a ride, and no understanding about how to get proper documents and set DMV appointments? She would have missed voting for the first time since 1948.

Jerry Decker, Fuquay-Varina

Abortion

Florida’s 6-week abortion ban took effect this month, and as a result, North Carolina is one of two remaining states in the South where patients can access abortion beyond six weeks.

As a board certified OB-GYN, I understand what continued attacks on bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom mean for my patients. We must fight for the right to abortion access for our own citizens as well as the thousands of individuals who are now being forced to travel hundreds of miles to the nearest abortion clinic, which for most of the South is now North Carolina.

Come November, I hope North Carolinians will be motivated to vote for representatives and leaders who understand that politicians have no place in personal healthcare decisions. We cannot let North Carolina become another state added to the list of those with even more extreme bans on access to essential healthcare.

Dr. Jenna Beckham, Durham

Newton’s mask bill

Regarding “NC legislators consider repealing exceptions to mask law,” (May 15):

The “Unmasking Mobs and Criminals” bill is a disaster for those of us who live with or care for medically fragile people or who have medical risks ourselves. While bill sponsor Sen. Buck Newton says he does not intend for it to impact “granny in Walmart,” I can foresee being stopped by some self-important, anti-masker who tells me is it illegal and demands I take it off. I don’t believe the world is the same as it was in 2020. Masks are seen as a political statement and frankly I don’t trust peoples’ common sense. I guess when this granny is confronted, I will hand them a card with Newton’s contact information. They can call him for an interpretation of this ridiculous bill.

Cindy J. DiLiberti, Hillsborough

Downtown

Suggestions for enlivening four key blocks of Fayetteville Street in downtown Raleigh (May 10) tinker around the edges rather than show a willingness to be more creative. Just because the previous effort to make Fayetteville Street a pedestrian mall was a failure doesn’t mean a better design couldn’t work. There are a lot more people living downtown now, and the idea of broadening sidewalks doesn’t address the noise factor of cars just a few feet away. Why not look at the four blocks more like a large square and visualize how that amount of open space could truly enliven the center of downtown?

Stephen Jenks, Carrboro