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UNC Board Of Governors Bans Civil Rights Center From New Litigation

Supporters of the UNC Center for Civil Rights protest outside of a committee meeting of the UNC Board of Governors meeting on August 1, 2017.
Dave Dewitt
/
WUNC
Supporters of the UNC Center for Civil Rights protest outside of a committee meeting of the UNC Board of Governors meeting on August 1, 2017.
Supporters of the UNC Center for Civil Rights protest outside of a committee meeting of the UNC Board of Governors meeting on August 1, 2017.
Dave Dewitt
Supporters of the UNC Center for Civil Rights protest outside of a committee meeting of the UNC Board of Governors meeting on August 1, 2017.

Updated at 10:56 a.m., September 8, 2017

The UNC Board of Governors has passed a resolution that bans university-based centers from filing lawsuits. The resolution means the Center for Civil Rights, based at the UNC Chapel Hill Law School, can no longer sue on behalf of low-income and minority clients.  WUNC managing editor Dave DeWitt talks about a vote this morning by The University of North Carolina system Board of Governors to bar all UNC system centers and institutes from engaging in litigation.

"This vote does not show a lack of support for the UNC law school by this board," said Lou Bissette, chair of the Board of Governors. "It also does not show a lack of support for the Civil Rights Center."

The Board of Governors previously closed a center on poverty at the Law School. The General Assembly has also cut the law school's budget by $500,000. 

After the vote, the managing attorney for the Center for Civil Rights, Mark Dorosin, interrupted the meeting and was removed. 

UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol Folt said she was disappointed in the vote by the university's Board of Governors.

“I believe that the university and the people who testified on behalf of the center made a compelling case about why the center is so important to the people of our state," Folt said in a statement Friday. "I am proud of the center, its history and all who worked so hard to answer the board’s questions and provide important facts about how the center serves the needs of our citizens."

Since its beginnings in 2001, the UNC Center for Civil Rights has fought legal battles on behalf of low-income and minority communities across the state.

The man behind the proposal is Board of Governors member and Raleigh attorney Steve Long, who believes the center’s legal battles violate the university system’s educational mission. Long has said that one part of the state, such as the center, should not sue another.

Critics of the proposal say the center provides legal counsel to marginalized communities that most need it, and otherwise cannot afford it. They say the proposed ban is an ideological attack on the center's social justice mission.

In one of its cases, the center prevented the expansion of a landfill in a black community already home to an animal shelter, sewage treatment facility, and hog farm. In another, it fought modern-day school segregation.

Members of the Board of Governors are elected by the state legislature, which has weighed heavily Republican in recent years.

With today's decision, the center will be allowed to continue litigation it has already started, but it will not be allowed to engage in any new cases.

Copyright 2017 North Carolina Public Radio

Before joining WUNC in October as the station's new education reporter, Lisa Philip covered schools in Howard County, Maryland for the Baltimore Sun newspapers. She traveled from school playgrounds to the state legislature, writing about everything from a Girl Scout friendship bench project to a state investigation into local school officials' alleged hiding of public records.
Dave DeWitt is WUNC's Feature News Editor. As an editor, reporter, and producer he's covered politics, environment, education, sports, and a wide range of other topics.
Elizabeth “Liz” Baier is WUNC’s Digital News Editor. She joined the station in May 2016 after eight year of reporting for Minnesota Public Radio News where she covered everything from demographic changes in rural America, agriculture, the environment and health care. Prior to that, Liz worked for six years as a newspaper reporter in South Florida, both at the Miami Herald and South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
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