WILMINGTON — A newly formed subcommittee of the UNCW Board of Trustees has been tasked with ensuring compliance with the UNC System’s mandate to eliminate DEI throughout its universities, though details remain sparse even after its first meeting.
READ MORE: UNCW removes cultural center leadership after DEI mandate, $1.45M redirected to student success
Named by BOT chair Hugh Caison at the trustees’ July meeting, committee members include Pender County Commissioner Jimmy Tate, who chairs the committee, New Hanover County Commissioner Dane Scalise, business development consultant Perry Chappell, former LabCorp executive Traci Butler, and Student Government Association President Skyler Stein.
They held their first meeting on Wednesday, with most people attending via Zoom. Another is scheduled for later this month, ahead of the university’s deadline to submit a DEI compliance report on Sept. 1.
“Over the next several weeks, your role will be to learn about UNCW’s equality policy compliance actions and ensure that they align with the policies protection for of equality for all persons, and affirm UNCW’s 2025 Certification Report, so that when we submit the report, we are doing so with the confidence and support of the board,” Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Christine Reed Davis said Wednesday.
At the meeting, Davis presented UNCW’s response to DEI mandates thus far, all previously reported by the university, and then the subcommittee held further discussion in closed session, away from the public.
The subcommittee was formed at the behest of the UNC System. On June 17, the UNC System Board of Governors’s Chair Wendy Murphy and governance committee chair Alex Mitchell issued a memo mandating each university form a subcommittee to ensure compliance with its 2024 “equality policy.” The policy repealed and barred DEI guidelines and departments from all campuses and required administrators to remain “neutral” on political controversies.
It also required a Sept. 1, 2024, initial report on how the university has complied with a recertification, with followup reports due on the same date every year thereafter.
Last September, campuses eliminated dozens of jobs, while another 131 positions were changed, as reported by The Assembly. In total, UNC System schools reported redirecting $16 million from former DEI programs to “student success” and “wellbeing” efforts, including $1.45 million at UNCW.
According to the memo, recertification reports due Sept. 1 will require a “meaningful verification that those realignments succeeded, and each board of trustees has a collective role to play in that verification.”
This includes confidential hearings from the chancellor on employee performances of any employees reassigned as part of the equality policy, as well as “anyone with vague or unclear titles within student affairs operations.”
The review will compare the employee’s prior and current position and examine “safeguard” to ensure the employee’s previous responsibilities are not continuing in the new role. Confidential briefings from the chancellor on any disciplinary action taken against personnel should occur at this time as well, the memo states.
According to Davis, staff at the next meeting will brief the committee on how UNCW has ensured compliance to the DEI mandates in training, its webpage and programming and curriculum compliance. Leadership will also provide a “more robust confidential personnel update” on employees that were moved from the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion to other positions.
Port City Daily asked the university to expand on what the next UNCW subcommittee will entail, including if employees will be brought in to speak. A UNCW spokesperson said the affected employees are not scheduled to be present before the subcommittee.
Though, because of the personnel involvement, large portions of the meeting could take place in closed session, like what occurred on Wednesday.
More details on the committee’s doings were not forthcoming from its members, either.
The only person to respond to PCD was SGA President Stein, who explained he didn’t request to be on the subcommittee, but nonetheless thought his inclusion represented the BOT chair’s commitment to the student voice.
PCD asked him to comment on the vision for the committee, if he had any reason to believe anyone at UNCW was not complying with DEI policy, and public perception of the committee.
“Yesterday’s meeting was very insightful, and I’m looking forward to the information provided at our next one,” Stein wrote in an email. “I believe the subcommittee is simply here to make sure everything is in order, not to spread fear, and I haven’t seen any evidence of noncompliance with DEI mandates. I think students have done a great job of rallying together in support of each other, and I look forward to seeing that continue this year.”
Trustee Chappell declined PCD’s interview request. Trustee Tate picked up the phone on two separate occasions, both times saying he was walking into a meeting and would call back; he did not and didn’t respond thereafter.
PCD didn’t get a response from Trustee Butler, nor Trustee Scalise. As one of the newest members to the BOT, inducted with Wilmington council member Luke Waddell, the DEI subcommittee is one of Scalise’ first tasks as a trustee. PCD emailed him three times for comment and received no response.
Scalise has made his views on DEI clear from the county commissioner dais in the past. When a proclamation for a National Day of Racial Healing came up at a January commissioner meeting, the commissioner took the opportunity to advocate for cutting the county’s DEI department — called the Office of Civic Engagement — from the budget, citing the federal government’s moves to root it out as well.
“It is time, as President Trump correctly noted during his inaugural address yesterday, to, quote, ‘end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life,’ and we’ll work tirelessly to make that reality at the local level,” Scalise said at the meeting.
New Hanover County’s Office of Civic Engagement is still operational.
The UNC System’s anti-DEI policies predated those of the new Trump administration. In May 2024, the UNC System Board of Governors voted 22-2 on the policy change eliminating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs across all 17 colleges and universities it oversees.
The UNC System has also passed a policy prohibiting compelled speech, issued directives after the Supreme Court’s strike down of affirmative action, and in February 2025, mandated universities suspend all general education and major specific requirements mandating completion of diversity, equity, and inclusion curriculum in response to federal action.
As for UNCW, its first DEI report detailed the elimination of the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion and reassignment of its 16 positions to either Student Affairs or Academic Affairs.
“Each new position in Student Affairs and Academic Affairs has a clearly defined operational student success, recruitment or retention function, and does not replicate former DEI-focused responsibilities of the staff who took on new roles,” Davis said at Wednesday’s meeting.
UNCW also removed the director positions at each of its four cultural centers — Upperman African American Cultural Center, Centro Hispano, Mohin-Scholz LGBTQIA Resource Center and the Asian Heritage Cultural Center. The school transferred the employees to other positions at the university and replaced them with coordinators at each center; the centers have been allowed to continue with a goal of “student success.” UNC System guidance includes that staff and administrators be able to provide data that these programs improve graduation rates, retention or student mental health.
As required by the UNC System, the savings collected from eliminating DEI were to be put toward student success and well being. UNCW identified $1.45 million to reallocate, $760,000 of which going to need-based financial aid.
Another $397,000 went to five positions within Student Engagement, Enrollment and Retention intended to “consolidate recruitment and pathway/pipeline programs under one unit to better align admissions, recruitment, and student success and engagement initiatives.”
The four coordinator positions, three full-time and one part-time, will be covered with $298,000 and housed within the Department of Campus Life. An additional director-level position was added on to provide oversight of the student centers and design programing for the centers which directly aligns with the UNC System’s strategic plan.
Ahead of the UNC System’s 2025 recertification deadline, the UNC System Board of Governors decided a submitted report was not enough.
“In the last several years, the Board of Governors has amplified efforts to ensure protection of the equality of all persons and their respective viewpoints,” Murphy and Mitchell wrote in the memo. “The effectiveness of any policy depends on its implementation. Effective implementation requires strong leadership and ongoing oversight.”
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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