Students walk at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, N.C., September 20, 2018. (Jonathan Drake/Reuters)

North Carolina was the first state to enact a bill that NR’s Stanley Kurtz helped draft, the Campus Free Speech Act. It requires the University of North Carolina system to produce a yearly report on how its constituent institutions are doing with respect to both free speech and institutional neutrality (which means that schools are not supposed to take positions on controversial public issues). How is it working?


In this Martin Center article, Shannon Watkins looks at pertinent events of the last year. There is some good news and some bad news.

On the good side, three campuses sufficiently cleared impediments to free speech to earn FIRE’s “green light” rating. Five others, however, made no progress in becoming more speech friendly.

One school really blew it on neutrality. UNC-Asheville adopted a policy of divesting from all fossil fuel companies. Others remained on record as supporting a “climate change” pledge, and one commencement speaker was a firebrand leftist zealot.

In sum, some of the UNC campuses are ignoring the law. The Board of Governors needs to take action.