UNC-Chapel Hill scraps secret recording policy in surprise reversal
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Chancellor announces reversal: university will scrap surreptitious recording policy.
- Policy allowed secret recordings for investigations and other lawful purposes,
- University cited past secret recordings and sought clarity, then reversed after backlash.
Earlier this month, UNC-Chapel Hill debuted a policy that gave the university license to secretly record classes without a professor’s knowledge. At a faculty council meeting Friday afternoon, Chancellor Lee Roberts announced the university is reversing course.
“The whole idea was to create clarity and reassurance,” Roberts said. “That policy clearly has not achieved that aim. So I’ve talked to the provost and to the faculty chair about it. We’re going to scrap it, and we’ll go back to the drawing board.”
The faculty council was stunned into silence. After months of accusing university leadership of decisions that flew in the face of their wishes, the revocation came as a surprise.
Until a few weeks ago, there was no official policy about when the university could record professors without their knowledge. Then the university released the following policy on Feb. 10:
“The University may record a class or access existing classroom recordings without the permission or knowledge of the instructor being recorded for the following purposes:
- To gather evidence in connection with an investigation into alleged violations of University policy, when authorized in writing by the Provost and the Chief Human Resources Officer; and
- For any other lawful purpose, when authorized in writing by the Provost and the Office of University Counsel, who will consult with the Chair of the Faculty.”
Now Roberts says that is null and void.
The school looked into and ultimately passed the policy because it had secretly recorded classes in absence of a policy, and thought clarity was needed.
In 2024, the school notified then-UNC business professor Larry Chavis that it had surreptitiously recorded four of his classes through the camera mounted on a wall of his classroom following “reports concerning class content and conduct.” He was later let go.
Roberts referenced this incident when answering questions from the faculty Friday.
“The purpose of the policy was to provide some predictability and guidance around when the administration could authorize the surreptitious recording of a faculty member’s class without their consent,” Roberts said Friday.
“Part of the reason to scrap it, in addition to the fact that it’s clearly created a lot of disquiet — which was the opposite, as I say, of the intent — is that [since] the original incident ... I have not heard of a single instance, not a single case in which we debated surreptitious recording and decided to do it. It just hasn’t come up.
“And so why go through this exercise that’s creating so much disquiet when this seems to be an extraordinarily rare type of occurrence? So to answer your question squarely: No, there will be no surreptitious recording of faculty without their consent, and we’ll evaluate whether we need some kind of other policy.”
UNC history professor Miguel La Serna thanked Roberts, saying this is the kind of moment that creates a sense of trust between university leadership, faculty, and students.
Roberts didn’t clarify whether other parts of the policy will be scrapped as well, such as the provision that disallows students from recording classes without professors’ knowledge. Faculty chair Beth Moracco said at the end of Roberts’ remarks that there are more conversations to be had around the recording policy.
This story was originally published February 27, 2026 at 4:20 PM with the headline "UNC-Chapel Hill scraps secret recording policy in surprise reversal."
