Raleigh, NC—A new report from the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal examines the rapid advancement of a Critical Social Justice ideology across the UNC System under the guise of seemingly innocuous Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. Both Critical Social Justice and DEI, with their emphasis on group identity within a victim-oppressor framework, reconstruct higher education around political activism and, increasingly, ideological conformity.
“Critical Social Justice has overtaken the search for knowledge as the university’s new mission,” said Martin Center president Dr. Jenna A. Robinson. “It is now a prominent part of almost every non-academic function of the university, from housing to student affairs. This report documents just how omnipresent these ideas and practices are on UNC’s campuses.”
The report’s authors, Dr. Scott Yenor of the Claremont Institute and Anna K. Miller of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, trace the UNC System’s ideological transformation back to a 2020 Racial Equity Task Force; from there, the report reveals the extent of Critical Social Justice on campuses through an analysis of DEI administrators, bias training policies, offices focused on aggrieved minorities, curriculum, and other factors. The report ranks universities from the most dedicated to DEI (UNC-Chapel Hill) to the least (Fayetteville State University).
Yenor and Miller also make several policy recommendations aimed at curbing the influence of Critical Social Justice within the UNC System, suggesting that the universities and North Carolina legislature reform the budget, identity-based institutes, general education requirements, hiring practices, DEI training, transparency policies, and put an end to racial preferences in hiring and university admissions.
To read more about the policy recommendations and the report’s findings on each public university in North Carolina, please visit our website and download a PDF of Critical Social Justice in the UNC System.