UNC Board of Governors to consider policy barring staff from ‘compelling’ speech

The UNC Board of Governors is considering a policy that would prohibit UNC System schools from asking applicants for employment, promotion or academic admission to share their personal beliefs.

The proposed policy would bar questions requiring applicants “to affirmatively ascribe to or opine about beliefs, affiliations, ideals, or principles regarding matters of contemporary political debate or social action as a condition to admission, employment, or professional advancement.” It would revise the “Employee Political Activities” section of the system’s policy manual.

Members of the board’s university governance committee voted Wednesday to send the proposed revision to the to the system’s full board for a possible vote at its next meeting, in February.

The proposed policy targets “compelled speech” — defined on a system document as “any form of speech or expression requiring an individual to demonstrate agreement with certain beliefs or ideological commitments in exchange for access to employment, career development, or admission.”

“This policy protects the right to exercise speech, or to refrain from exercising speech,” the system’s FAQ document says.

The policy text does not specify what current practices it would change. But it might affect hiring and application questions about diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. At the UNC School of Medicine, for instance, applicants for appointments, promotion and tenure are required to demonstrate and provide statements about their commitment to the school’s DEI efforts.

“We do not condition employment or enrollment on adherence to any set of beliefs, no matter how well intended,” UNC System President Peter Hans said Wednesday in committee. “There’s a long list of good and worthy ideas we could require people to hold, but that’s not the role of the university.”

As written, the policy would not prevent the discussion of personal beliefs in classrooms, academic scholarship or research.

Neither Hans nor system general counsel Andrew Tripp pointed to a specific example of when a system employee had forced anyone to voice specific beliefs, affiliations or principles.

There was not “one particular event” that led to the policy proposal, Hans told reporters after Thursday’s full board meeting.

Some exceptions allowed

The proposed policy provides some caveats and exceptions. For example, applicants would not be prevented from volunteering information about their personal views on their own, without prompting from an application or by an interviewer.

“Our faculty, staff and students, of course, have constitutionally protected rights — free speech, free thought, free expression,” Hans told reporters after Thursday’s full board meeting. “If they choose to opine on their own, or offer an expression of their beliefs on any given topic, they’re certainly well within their rights to do so.”

The policy would also allow applications and interviewers to ask about elements of an applicant’s work, resume and scholarship, which could be related to their personal beliefs.

The policy would not impact universities’ “ability to ensure its employees comply with applicable federal or state law or existing employment requisites under the law or agency policy, such as employment oaths, appointment affidavits, and licensure and certification requirements.”

“We have non-discrimination federal laws, state laws, university policies, and so I would think any question about existing federal state law or university policy would be perfectly appropriate,” Hans told reporters.

The policy outlines a process through which additional exceptions not listed in the policy could be granted to universities, which would involve a meeting of the university governance committee and written approval from the UNC System president.

If passed as now written, employees who violate the policy could be disciplined, though specific disciplinary actions are not outlined.

Asked whether the proposed policy would impact the School of Medicine’s requirements, Hans said Thursday he would “need to take a closer look at that specific point.”

Alan Wolf, director of local news and issues for UNC Health, told The News & Observer that, because the policy is still in development and a final vote has not been taken, the School of Medicine “will wait to see a final policy from the Board of Governors in order to understand any changes required.”

In drafting the policy, the system “solicited feedback all over the country and North Carolina,” Tripp said during Wednesday’s committee meeting.

The UNC System will accept public comments on the policy until the board’s next meeting, in February.