Faculty and students call on UNC to release sealed investigation into Civic Life
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- Faculty Council urged leadership to release the report and provide more transparency.
- University leadership hired a law firm in 2025 for a $1.2 million, seven-month probe.
- Students demanded release, and local news outlets including The News & Observer sued.
For certain students and faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill, the university’s decision not to release the results of its $1.2 million investigation into its School of Civic Life and Leadership is not only a deep betrayal. They say it’s a symptom of a larger pattern of secrecy and unaccountability.
On Friday afternoon in Chapel Hill, the indignation about the decision to withhold the report came to a crescendo.
The School of Civic Life and Leadership — envisioned as a haven for intellectual diversity on a liberal campus — has roiled campus since its inception in 2023, and not only because of its conservative bent.
Allegations around improper hiring and management practices grew to such a pitch that university leadership hired an outside law firm to conduct an investigation in 2025. In March, the university announced it would not release the results.
In defense of that decision, Chancellor Lee Roberts has asserted that the report is protected by attorney-client privilege, and that “the entire thing is personnel information.”
North Carolina law allows public agencies to make personnel information public if the agency’s reputation is at stake. It’s known as the integrity exemption.
Faculty debates release
The Faculty Council passed two resolutions at its final meeting of the school year: one calling on Roberts to release the report, and another asking for greater transparency in the creation of new schools more broadly.
Some faculty disagree with the basis of Roberts’ argument.
“[It] seems very unlikely that attorney-client privilege would protect that document from being released as a public record,” UNC law professor Maxine Eichner told the Faculty Council. But if it indeed does, Eichner said, Roberts has the power to waive it.
Each resolution passed, but not without dissent.
Ray Dooley, who teaches drama at UNC, voiced concerns that even if personnel information was redacted upon release of the report, it would not be enough to protect the identities of the people interviewed.
“I have grave doubts that redacting elements of the report will protect our brave colleagues who did come forward and would instead ignite speculation,” Dooley said. “The second concern is the chilling effect this might have on any future such external investigation in which people brave enough to come forward are promised confidentiality.”
Roberts did not attend the meeting due to a scheduling conflict.
Students protest withheld report
Outside of Faculty Council, a coalition of student organizations — TransparUNCy, the Sunrise Movement, and the Black Student Movement — gathered to urge university leadership to release the investigation.
UNC student and TransparUNCy spokesperson Kaveya Wertz called the release a “necessary first step towards holding SCiLL and the powers and interests behind it to account.”
In describing the issues surrounding SCiLL, students cited massive faculty turnover, allegations of a culture of bullying, concerns of the former provost and former school leadership around hiring practices, and what they see as a “thinly veiled Trojan horse for an explicitly conservative takeover of higher education.”
“Let us never forget, this university does not belong to shadow donors, unaccountable administrators or political operatives,” Wertz said. “It belongs to us, the faculty who teach and mentor students, the staff who sustain its operations, and the students whose futures are molded within its walls. We will not let administration’s failures uphold norms of accountability and transparency, and relegate us to the status of passive observers. We hold the real power, and we must exercise it today and always.”
But student leaders, including Toby Posel of TransparUNCy, are skeptical about the legitimacy of the report, even if it is released.
“The investigation itself was problematic from its very inception,” Posel told The N&O. “[SCiLL dean] Jed Atkins himself initiated the investigation in order to preempt any kind of public scrutiny that would undermine his power. The investigation, as has been well reported, was spearheaded by the general counsel of the university, Paul Newton, who, until six months before, had been one of the leading members of the North Carolina Republican Party. He, of course, contracted a highly politicized law firm that’s a favorite of the NCGOP. I know this process was never going to be neutral, and so we’re very critical and somewhat cynical about the investigation itself.”
Nonetheless, students feel they have a right to see it.
“Over 400 pages, $1.2 million and a seven-month investigation are being buried before our eyes,” UNC student Nia Quigley said. “We are not naive enough to let that be the end of this story.”
Multiple local news outlets, including The News & Observer, have sued UNC under North Carolina public records law for the release of the report.
This story was originally published April 17, 2026 at 6:58 PM with the headline "Faculty and students call on UNC to release sealed investigation into Civic Life."
