In the 2024–2025 academic year, the School of Civic Life and Leadership (SCiLL) established a record that should cause embarrassment to UNC’s leaders. Of the nine Chapel Hill faculty initially brought on board to staff the SCiLL, at least six have already resigned, citing defective leadership, mission drift, and shocking procedural irregularities.

For the many faculty who decried the imposition on our campus of a redundant and expensive program designed to be peopled and partly funded by right-wing think tanks pursuing pet political objectives, SCiLL’s roll-out was hard to witness. But its continued existence is much worse. Not merely a bureaucratic trainwreck, the SCiLL is intellectually deficient and represents a gross political incursion into the curricular operations of our campus.

One departing member of the SCiLL, economics professor Jon Williams, recently called the School an “unmitigated disaster.” It is characterized, he said, by “incivility and dysfunction, biased and unfair processes, a complete disregard for governance, and a willingness to deceive and misrepresent that is unlike anything I’ve witnessed in my 15 years in academia.” English professor Inger Brodey, who served as an associate dean at the School, explained her resignation to the Daily Tar Heel by noting that the “SCiLL is currently the least civil department” she is aware of on this campus, which is quite the achievement for a School ostensibly devoted to civil discourse.

Despite its record of betrayal and dysfunction, however, SCiLL continues to fail upwards. N. C. Senate Bill 257 proposes pouring millions more into SCiLL while mandating cuts to “low enrollment” programs at Chapel Hill and across the UNC system.

Some facts all UNC faculty should know:

• SCiLL’s touted “Courageous Conversations” course on Israel-Palestine was led by a faculty member with no expertise in the subject; paid for weekly travel to UNC for non-academic “guest speakers”; required students to apply and be vetted in order to enroll; and purportedly cost $500,000.

• The proposed budget, now under consideration in the House, would remove the SCiLL from the College of Arts & Sciences and eliminate oversight by the Provost—the university’s chief academic officer.

• The budget specifies that by 2025–2026 the SCiLL should employ “at least twenty” tenured faculty hired from outside UNC-Chapel Hill.

• The budget prohibits any further joint or adjunct appointments involving Chapel Hill faculty until the hiring of those twenty or more non-UNC people.

• The expansion of the SCiLL, and the legislature’s careful design to exclude current Chapel Hill faculty from planning and decision-making, comes even as other programs actually created by faculty and staffed by scholars with genuine disciplinary expertise will probably be placed on the chopping block.

• These draconian cuts would involve “for each year [emphasis added] of the 2025-2027 fiscal biennium” $33.6 million in spending reductions to Centers and Institutes across the UNC system. In addition, in the fiscal year 2026–2027, $20 million will be cut from “low-performing” academic programs “or other curriculum” across the system, excluding the already-ravaged Greensboro and Asheville campuses. (See SB 257, page 126.)

If SCiLL—poised to become larger and even less accountable—continues on its current trajectory, it will become an albatross that will transform UNC from arguably the best public University in the nation into a second-rate state school.

UNC leaders must push back.

References and Resources

Ahmadi, M. 2024. “Original strife’ to spring sign-ups: How the School of Civic Life and Leadership came to be.” Daily Tar Heel, April 9: https://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2024/04/original-strife-to-spring-sign-ups-how-the-school-of-civil-life-and-leadership-came-to-be

Ahmadi, M. 2025. “Q&A: Chancellor Lee Roberts addresses key issues and changes from the past year.” Daily Tar Heel, April 22: https://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2025/04/university-lee-roberts-quanda

American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU), 2025. “A Call for Constructive Engagement”: https://www.aacu.org/newsroom/a-call-for-constructive-engagement

Butler, R. 2025. “University offers tentative spring break trip to Israel and Palestine, sparks controversy.” Daily Tar Heel, Jan. 19: https://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2025/01/university-scill-courageous-conversations

Fox News, 2023. “UNC forms school of civic life and leadership to provide equal opportunity for students: David Bolick,” (video) Jan. 28: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6319418361112

Goldstein, B. & W. Snider, 2023. “Op-Ed: How not to start a new School of Civic Life at UNC-Chapel Hill.” News & Observer, Feb. 2: https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article272014862.html

Hartman, M. 2025. “Before He Quit, UNC-CH’s Provost Was Involved in Messy Fight at School of Civic Life.” The Assembly, April 9: https://www.theassemblync.com/education/higher-education/clemens-provost-resign-unc-chapel-hill-civic-life/

Hudson, S. 2025. “Courageous Conversations students discuss Israel-Palestine conflict.” The Well, March 20: https://www.unc.edu/posts/2025/03/20/courageous-conversations-students-discuss-israel-palestine-conflict/

Killian, J. 2023. “Budget sets tight timeline, new specifies for controversial new school at UNC-Chapel Hill.” Inside Higher Ed./NC Newsline, Sept. 25: https://ncnewsline.com/2023/09/25/budget-sets-tight-timeline-new-specifics-for-controversial-new-school-at-unc-chapel-hill

Killian, J., 2017. “UNC Board of Governors hosts conservative academic star, looks to emulate his program.” Inside Higher Ed./NC Newsline, Dec. 15: https://ncnewsline.com/briefs/unc-board-governors-hosts-conservative-academic-star-looks-emulate-program/

Lockhart, A. 2024. “’No one has provided me with clear answers’: Four inaugural faculty leave SCiLL,” Daily Tar Heel, Sept. 19: https://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2024/09/university-scill-shifting-direction

Lockhart, A. 2025. “Associate dean resigns from SCiLL, citing ’lost faith’ in Atkins’ leadership.” Daily Tar Heel, March 7: https://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2025/03/sp-scill-faculty-updates

Murawski, J. 2025. “In North Carolina, College Reformers Have Met the Enemy and It Is … Them.” Real Clear Investigations Newsletter, April 9: https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2025/04/09/in_north_carolina_academic_conservatives_have_met_the_enemy_and_it_is__them_1102412.html

News & Observer Editorial Board, 2019. “Is UNC launching a program for conservative thinking? It’s kind of a secret,“ News & Observer, Aug. 22: https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article234173767.html

News & Observer Editorial Board, 2023. “At UNC, conservatives claim they are oppressed, so they’re oppressing the faculty.” Feb. 2: https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article271885762.html

North Carolina Senate Bill 257, 2025. “Appropriations and Base Budget”: https://www.ncleg.gov/Sessions/2025/Bills/Senate/PDF/S257v2.pdf

Quinn, R. 2023. “Confusion over a new unit at Chapel Hill.” Inside Higher Ed./NC Newsline. Feb. 7.: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2023/02/08/unc-chapel-hill-leaders-diverge-what-new-school-will-be

Quinn, R. 2025. “Resignations, Disagreements With Dean Roil Chapel Hill Civics School.” Inside Higher Ed./NC Newsline, March 18: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/shared-governance/2025/03/18/resignations-disagreements-dean-roil-unc-civics

Quinn, R. 2025. “UNC Chapel Hill Provost Stepping Down Amid Civic Life Strife.” Inside Higher Ed, April 14: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/04/14/unc-chapel-hill-provost-stepping-down-amid-civic-life-strife

Schwalbe, M. 2023. “The uncivil origins of the School of Civic Life and Leadership at UNC.” Inside Higher Ed./NC Newsline, Oct. 19: https://ncnewsline.com/2023/10/19/the-uncivil-origins-of-the-school-of-civic-life-and-leadership-at-unc/

Smith, J. & K. Booth, 2019. “Op-Ed: The problem with a conservative new UNC program.” Charlotte Observer. Sept. 8: https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article234799637.html

UNC-CH Faculty Council, 2025. “Resolution 2025-3. On the UNC Faculty Affirming Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom”: https://facultygov.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/261/2025/03/Res-2025-3.-On-Faculty-Freedom.pdf