FORUM
Dear Governor: Help protect HBCUs
Ken
Spalding
Guest
Columnist
Governor Pat McCrory
Office of the Governor
20301 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-0301
Dear Governor McCrory:
1 call upon you to join me in supporting
all of our state supported Historically
Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
and in opposing attempts to close any of
these most valuable institutions of high
learning. These institutions have produced
tens of thousands of proactive and success
ful North Carolinians including a governor
of this state and a nationally renowned
astronaut.
I bring
this to your
attention at
this time
because
countless
North
Carolinians
are
extremely
concerned
about the
previous
unwarrant
ed actions
of the
Republican
controlled
University
Board of
Governors and what those actions portend
for the existing state supported HBCUs.
The unjustified termination of Dr. Tom
Ross, University President, and the under
served elimination of the three university
based centers which focused on the envi
ronment, poverty and voter engagement
demonstrate a proclivity of this Board to
go after
those who
are not ide
ologically
in agree
ment with
them.
Academic
freedom
and educa
tion, in gen
eral, should
be allowed
to exist for
the full ben
efit of the
students,
faculty, and
our state as
a whole.
Under the guise of cost savings, it is
anticipated that the next ideological target
will be our state's HBCUs. I wish to point
out that these important institutions pro
vide a wide range of educational opportu
nities to thousands of minority students
along with non-minority students, as well.
These institutions provide essential aca
demic skills which create a pathway to
success and a productive economic future
for so many of our young people.
The financial impact of HBCUs on the
communities which house them are critical
to their vitality and economic security. The
inter-relationship between "town and
gown" is unmistakable and important to
our state's success.
Therefore, as Governor and leader of
your party, I call upon you to make it clear
to your Republican controlled Board of
Governors that funding should be secure
for these productive and successful
HBCUs in North Carolina. We need no
further divisive actions in this state.
Educational opportunities in our HBCUs
continue to open doors for all North
Carolinians who choose to avail them
selves of their culturally rich and impor
tant value.
Sincerely,
Ken Spaulding
(Ken Spaulding is
a Democratic candidate
for governor of North Carolina.)
Doomed UNC centers sang the wrong songs
I
I
I ?
Steve Ford
Guest
Columnist
It's easy to imagine
what the conservative
Republicans who rule
North Carolina's legisla
tive roost were thinking:
"Here we've gone to all the
trouble to take control of
Ithe General Assembly. We
appoint the University of
North Carolina system's
Board of Governors. We
set the system's budget.
"So why should we
have to put up with the
jibes of an impudent
Democrat law professor
who uses his university job
to accuse us of ignoring
poverty? What do he and
his liberal pals know about
putting more money in
poor people's pockets?
They don't even under
stand that tax cuts are the
way to boost the economy.
"We may not be able to
shut this guy up complete
ly, but we're counting on
our minions on the Board
of Governors to knock him
down to size. After all, we
didn't put those folks on
the board just because we
liked their looks!"
There's no telling what
sort of signals Republican
legislators may actually
have sent to board mem
bers regarding the fate of
UNC-Chapel Hill's Gene
Nichol and the anti-poverty
center he has headed since
2008.
But after a months-long
evaluation of 240 scholarly
centers and institutes
across the UNC system -
an evaluation ordered up
by those same legislators -
a grand total of three
flunked the test. Nobody
could have been the least
bit surprised that among
the trio hit with an adminis
trative death sentence was
Nichol's Center on
Poverty, Work and
Opportunity.
That organization must
close by Sept. 1, as must
NC Central University's
Center for Civic
Engagement and Social
Change and East Carolina
University's Center for
Biodiversity. Of course, if
there hadn't been such an
obvious desire to whack
the poverty center, the
other two might have
avoided being dragged
down with it. But with their
emphasis on social justice
issues and environmental
protection, they proved to
be expedient targets as
well.
To those of us who
think that promoting civic
engagement in pursuit of
social justice and encour
aging the study of the
effects of climate change
and other environmental
threats are good things,
zapping those two centers
rubs salt in an already
painful wound.
Certainly, it reflects
conservative animosity
toward agendas that are
commonly assigned a liber
al label - even if encourag
ing people to vote and fol
lowing the paths of science
where they lead are activi
ties that should appeal
across ideological lines.
Freedom flummoxed
The common denomi
nator here is a stifling of
academic efforts that run
afoul of conservative
orthodoxy and Republican
political convenience.
That's a blow to academic
freedom, almost by defini
tion. It risks tarnishing one
of North Carolina's most
precious assets, its nation
ally renowned system of
public higher education.
No wonder there's been an
outcry up and down that
system's ranks - from fac
ulty, students, and adminis
trators.
There's no getting
around the fact that the
poverty center, for all of
Nichol's important efforts
to rouse North Carolinians
to the scale and conse
quences of poverty in their
midst, has operated with a
certain Democratic flavor.
Nichol himself, during
an earlier phase of his
career in Colorado, ran in
Democratic primaries for
the U.S. Senate and House,
losing both times. Fast-for
ward to 2005, when as
UNC's law school dean he
helped recruit former U.S.
Sen. John Edwards as the
center's first, part-time
director. The center thus
gave Edwards, the
Democratic candidate for
vice president in 2004, a
temporary base of opera
tions as he geared up for
what became his failed
populist bid for the party's
presidential nomination in
2008. Republicans were
not amused.
After Nichol was
named to the director's job,
he became a thorn in the
side of state leaders who he
insisted were not doing
enough to fight the poverty
that plagued North
Carolina's inner cities,
struggling small towns and
rural outback. Democrats
weren't spared from his
barbs, but the Republicans
who took over the legisla
ture in 2010 really felt the
heat.
Their patience might
well have snapped during
2013, when the Moral
Monday protests led by the
NAACP focused national
attention on the state's
rightward lurch. Nichol
and the N.C. NAACP
chapter under the Rev.
William Barber had teamed
to explore and expose the
poverty problem, with
Nichol contributing a
series of op-ed articles that
ran in The News &
Observer.
Although Nichol was
justifiably proud of those
articles - listing them as
among the poverty center's
accomplishments in his
attempt to convince the
Board of Governors to
keep the center alive - his
message was clear:
Republican leaders, includ
ing Gov. Pat McCrory,
were doing nothing of sub
stance to alleviate the
poverty in which many
thousands of North
Carolinians were ensnared,
and indeed were making
matters worse.
Still, Nichol's outspo
kenness was not among the
reasons cited by the Board
of Governors committee in
recommending that the
poverty center be closed.
Free market solu
tions?
The committee noted
that UNC-Chapel Hill "is
working on other, multi
disciplinary poverty
efforts" - as if that would
eliminate the value of a
center focused solely on
examining poverty's reach,,
causes and remedies.
Perhaps it was fair for
the panel to question the
poverty center's tie to the
law school as opposed to,
say, the university's School
of Social Work or
Department of Public
Policy - although a fair
response would be that it
was a law professor who
figured out how to make
the concept work and
secured outside funding to
run it.
But the most telling cri
tique was that the center
"did not provide a wide
range (sic) of alternatives
for addressing poverty."
In other words, the cen
ter didn't favor tax cuts to
help the "job creators" of
whom Republicans are so
solicitous.
It didn't favor cutting
back on unemployment
benefits so that people
would be even more des
perate to find work that
often simply isn't there.
It didn't favor blaming
poor people for their own
predicament.
Among the steps the
poverty center has conspic
uously, and properly,
favored is a robust invest
ment in public education -
the kind of investment
that's made even more dif
ficult by the legislature's
fixation on lower taxes.
Nichol - recipient of the
Council of Churches' Faith
Active in Public Life award
- has written forcefully for
the Council about educa
tion's power as an anti
poverty antidote.
Now the Board of
Governors, in cracking
down on three university
centers whose agendas
challenge Republican
dogma, moves to enforce a
needlessly constricted view
of how public universities
can serve the people in
whose name they operate.
Even when the affected
personnel such as Nichol
hold tenured posts and thus
have a degree of job pro
tection if they continue to
speak out - as Nichol says
he intends to do - the
board's action hampers
work that's entirely consis
tent with the mission of a
public university system.
That's especially so in
the case of the UNC sys
tem, which over the
decades has spearheaded
so much of North
Carolina's social and eco
nomic progress. All those
who want that progress to
continue - and to be shared
by our neighbors who still
find themselves on the out
side of the prosperity win
dow, looking in - should be
sad to see the universities'
legacy of a?ivism in behalf
of positive social change
now being eroded.
Steve Ford, former edi
torial page editor at
Raleigh's News &
Observer, is now a
Volunteer Program
Associate at the North
Carolina Council of
Churches
<53
The bullying politics of revenge continues in Raleigh
Chris
Fitzsimon
Guest
Columnist
Anybody
still holding
out hope that
the bitter par
tisan politics
of revenge,
bullying and
raw power
grabbing on
display in
Raleigh during the last four years was on
the wane can't have much hope left after
watching the Senate leadership last week.
The Senate not only voted to change
the election districts in county commission
races in Wake County and city council
contests in Greensboro, they refused to
even allow debate on the Senate floor
about allowing people in those communi
ties to have a say about the changes in then
own local elections.
The political arrogance and overreach
is breathtaking, even for the crowd cur
rently in charge in Raleigh ? and that's
saying something.
The Senate approved plans by Sen.
Trudy Wade to change Greensboro elec
tions and Sen. Chad Barefoot to change
districts for the Wake County Commission
with both senator* using the same justift
cations, that power in the current system in
both areas has become too concentrated
and the districts needed to be redrawn to
better serve all the people of Greensboro
and Wake County.
Putting aside the irony of Senate lead
ers complaining about an undemocratic
concentration of power, the justification is
absurd on its face.
The bills to change the elections didn't
come after a popular uprising in either
area. No mass of voters in Greensboro or
Wake County came to the General
Assembly demanding a different way to
select their local leaders.
No, what happened is that votes in both
areas elected Democrats and the
Republicans in control of the General
Assembly simply can't have that, especial
ly in two of state's largest urban areas. So
after losing the elections, they used their
supermajorities in Raleigh to change the
rules of the elections the next time the vot
ers go to the polls.
As brazen and appalling as the abuse of
power seems, taken in the context of the
last few years it's not all that surprising.
There's been a war on urban areas of the
state since the Republicans took over the
House and Senate, from attacks on the
t k
water system in Asheville to attempting to
change who runs the Charlotte airport.
They have already changed the elec
tions in school board races in Guilford
County and Wake County and they abol
ished the privilege license fees cities
charge businesses, costing cities millions
of dollars. They don't like the urban areas
and they certainly don't like the way the
elections in cities are turning out these
days.
And not just liberals are complaining
about the heavy-handed tactics. Gov. Pat
McCrory, a fellow Republican, said
recently that the General Assembly should
stay out of local issues. The next day.
Senator Barefoot introduced his bill to dis
tort the Wake County Commission races
for Republican advantage.
Senate Republicans don't listen to their
own governor. They don't listen to any
body. And they are not too interested in
what the people of North Carolina think
either.
That was made clear during the debate
on the Senate floor about the Wake County
and Greensboro power-grabbing propos
als. Democrats offered amendments to
both bills to put the changes up for a refer
endum, to let the people affected by the
proposal actually have a say in it.
But in both cases, Senate leaders
wouldn't even allow the subject to be
debated, much less voted on by the entire
Senate. Instead they used a parliamentary
move to kill the idea.
The people can't vote on changes to
their own elections and the people they
send to Raleigh can't even talk about
whether they should have that right.
Senate leaders know best.
The episode brings to mind the quote
from Senator Tommy Tucker a couple of
years ago when he famously told someone
expressing a contrary point of view, "I am
the senator. You are the citizen. You need
to be quiet."
Senate leaders just told the people of
Raleigh and Greensboro the same thing
last week. They know better and they'll
decide who runs your school board and
city council and don't really care what you
or the people who represent you in the
Senate think about it. You need to be quiet.
Chris Fiizsimon writes for
NCPolicy Watch .com.