February 10, 2026
An Open Letter to Chancellor Kevin Howell, Provost Warwick Arden, and Vice-Chancellor and Dean of DASA Doneka Scott
Dear Chancellor Howell, Provost Arden, and Dean Scott,
We write to seek an explanation for the separation of Jae Edwards, former assistant director of the LGBTQ Pride center, from NC State. In the absence of any clear evidence that Edwards violated university policies or the conditions of his employment, he should be reinstated.
Mr. Edwards was separated from NC State less than 24 hours after the right-wing group, Accuracy in Media (AiM), posted a heavily edited video recording made without his knowledge or permission. From all appearances, this was a secretly recorded personal conversation with a friendly interlocutor, and new reporting by the Nubian Message indicates that it was made more than a year ago, in fall 2024. AiM has similarly targeted student-facing staff members on other UNC System campuses, including UNC Charlotte, UNC Asheville, Western Carolina University, UNC Wilmington and North Carolina A&T, leading to at least four employee terminations. All of the fired staff members have been women or people of color who work directly in support of students, but who lack the protection of tenure.
As leaders of the NC State chapter of the American Association of University Professors, the North Carolina Conference of the AAUP, NCSU Graduate Workers Organizing Committee UE Local 150, and student government, we call on you to offer a full accounting of the processes that led to Mr. Edwards' separation. We do not accept a system in which personnel decisions affecting people’s careers and livelihoods are made at the direction of online vigilantes and so-called journalists, whose methods would not be taught in our university or allowed at our university publications.
The intention of each AiM video recorded on UNC system campuses has been to show staff endorsing or admitting to violations of the system’s 2024 replacement of its “Policy on Diversity and Inclusion” with a policy that emphasizes “institutional neutrality and nondiscrimination.” Yet Accuracy in Media is itself a partisan nonprofit whose president, Adam Guillette, previously worked for Project Veritas, a right-wing media organization that has been successfully sued for fraud and deceptive tactics.
AiM’s claims do not hold up to objective scrutiny, and their methods violate established standards of journalistic ethics. In the case of NC State, AiM’s headline claims “NC State staffer admits school swapped names and titles, but keeps DEI going,” yet this claim is not consistent with the video or with the direct quotations offered in their report. In fact, AiM was so determined to produce damning evidence that they resorted to paraphrasing Mr. Edwards' speech, rather than presenting an actual spoken quotation. Parts of the “interview” replace his voice with ominous background music, and the questions asked by AiM are inaudible or cut from the recording. No context is offered for Mr. Edwards’s claim that “we’re still able to do the things that we want to do, have these events and programs.”
Janique Sanders, one of the UNC system staffers fired in May over an AiM video, is currently suing UNC Charlotte for racial discrimination and violation of her First Amendment rights. Ms. Sanders’s lawsuit alleges that she was not questioned before being fired. In June 2025, Mr. Guillette admitted that the UNC system universities featured in AiM’s stories did not request to review full, unedited videos.
Jae Edwards did not know he was being recorded, yet many of his statements offer commendable examples of student-centered work that makes a large university like NC State welcoming to all students. “It’s still important, more than ever, to celebrate and uplift our students,” he says. Jae Edwards represents the best of NC State's commitment to caring for the Wolfpack community. Separating Edwards from the university sends our students precisely the wrong message about our values and our concern for their well-being.
NC State must show the Wolfpack community, and especially our students, that we adhere to the highest standards of ethical behavior, moral courage, and human decency. University staff who work tirelessly to help students must be protected and supported. Mr. Jae Edwards must be reinstated.
Sincerely,
David Ambaras, President, AAUP NC State Chapter
Belle Boggs, President, AAUP NC
Walter Robinson, Chair of the Faculty
NCSU Graduate Workers Organizing Committee, UE Local 150
Student Senate Standing Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Brian Carss, Student Senator, Graduate Delegation Head
Judson Avery, Student Senator, Vice Chair of the DEI Committee
Katie Stennette, Student Senator and Member of UE150
Ava Butler, Student Senator
Frankie Frink, Student Senator
John Britt, Student Senator
Jonathan Falso, Student Senator
Mordecai Mengesteab, Student Senator
Evie Shackles, Student Senator
Morgan Steiner, Student Senator
Everett Jensen, Student Senator
….
Dear Chancellor Woodson and incoming Chancellor Howell,
We, the NC State University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) have learned with chagrin about the departure from the USA of two NC State international students after their visas were arbitrarily and inexplicably revoked. Many more international students are seeing their visas revoked in North Carolina and across the country, and some are being forcibly deported. The Trump administration’s attacks on international faculty and students, based on vague claims by the secretary of state and conducted without any semblance of due process, not only violate the First Amendment, but also strike at the heart of academic freedom and echo some of the darkest moments in US history.
The AAUP strongly and unequivocally condemns this targeting of international students and scholars.
We call on NC State University to take concrete steps to support students and scholars at risk. At a moment when the future of higher education and free speech are in peril, universities have obligations beyond doing no harm. If the university fails to protect all students and scholars, it jeopardizes the safety and academic freedom of all students and scholars.
Our AAUP chapter is committed to ensuring the safety of our university community members. We therefore ask the following:
The University should not turn over personal student information in response to Title VI investigations. For a full discussion of this matter, please see the AAUP’s public letter to the offices of general counsels.
The University should make a clear commitment to avoid voluntary cooperation or information sharing with Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other federal agencies charged with facilitating deportation or other forms of immigration enforcement.
The University should make a clear commitment to not comply with Section 3 of the expanded Executive Order 13899, which calls for universities to “monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff relevant to those grounds and for ensuring that such reports about aliens lead, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.”
The University should keep international students enrolled in the event of visa revocation, legal status termination, detention, and/or deportation.
The University should allow these international students and scholars to continue their studies and research remotely, if necessary.
The University should ensure that graduate students and workers whose enrollment is contingent upon funding through graduate teaching appointments or fellowships can continue their coursework, research, and teaching appointments. This may mean that the university covers the increased cost of assigning additional teaching appointments to a graduate student not residing in the United States. The University should similarly ensure that international students holding Research Assistantships from federal grants can receive financial support to continue their coursework and research at the level necessary to maintain their visa status should those grants be suspended or terminated.
The University should devote resources to communicating reliable, timely information to international students and scholars, including immediate notification of changes in their legal status.
The University should provide and pay for legal counsel for those students and scholars whose visas have been revoked.
The University should work swiftly and affirmatively—through lawsuits, if necessary—to stop the termination of legal status of students and scholars without any due process.
NC State is a great university in large part due to the contributions, intellectual, cultural, and financial, of international students and scholars. Their presence and participation are essential for achieving our land-grant missions of instruction, knowledge creation, and service. Defending the rights of international students and scholars is also a moral obligation, grounded in our shared commitment to learn from and not repeat the terrible mistakes of the past. It is, therefore absolutely incumbent upon NC State University leaders to speak up for the rights and safety of international students and scholars as you would for any member of The Pack.
Sincerely,
The NC State University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors
Statement of the N. C. state conference on UNC system curricular interference
February 11, 2025
On February 5 the University of North Carolina system issued a memorandum to UNC chancellors announcing that "all general education requirements and major-specific requirements mandating completion of course credits related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, or any other topic identified in Section VII of the [UNC system] Equality Policy are suspended" (p. 2).
The North Carolina State Conference of the AAUP strongly condemns this new policy.
The document's authoritarian echoes are hard to ignore. The author of the memorandum, UNC-system legal counsel Andrew Tripp, writes openly about program requirements that touch on "prohibited topics." He cites president Trump's January 21 executive order to “excise references to DEI and DEIA principles, under whatever name they may appear" (p. 2). The UNC system, in short, proposes to police the circulation of "topics" and "principles" on its campuses. This overt attempt at thought control constitutes educational malpractice. It also diverges sharply from UNC's own decades-long traditions of free expression and academic freedom.
Indeed, from the perspective of the AAUP the most intolerable aspect of the new policy is its blithe dismissal of the principles of both academic freedom and shared governance. General education and major requirements reflect the expertise of university faculty whose intellectual control over the curriculum has long been a cornerstone of higher learning in the United States. It is the faculty, as explained in the 1966 joint statement from the AAUP, the American Council on Education (ACE), and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB), that "sets the requirements for the degrees offered in course, determines when the requirements have been met, and authorizes the president and board to grant the degrees thus achieved" (section 5). Governing boards, by contrast, are expected to exercise self-restraint and respect for campus autonomy. "The governing board of an institution of higher education, while maintaining a general overview, entrusts the conduct of administration to the administrative officers—the president and the deans—and the conduct of teaching and research to the faculty. The board should undertake appropriate self-limitation" (section 3).
Acting in flagrant violation of this principle, the UNC system claims that the preemptive move to eliminate program requirements "related to diversity, equity, and inclusion" is necessary to protect federal research funding that could be threatened by perceived violations of "applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws" (p. 1). Yet both the validity and the legality of anti-DEI executive orders are very much open to debate. They will surely be the subject of extensive litigation. It would be difficult for anyone to argue, in a court or anywhere else, that teaching students about the experiences of people from different regions, religions, communities, and perspectives "discriminates" against others. This directive simply reflects and facilitates an ill-advised political agenda.
The UNC system's rush to comply with dubious orders represents a failure of leadership and a betrayal of genuine academic values. Its effort to sow division between the hard sciences and the humanities--its memo ends by praising "the great work of its doctors, scientists, professors, and researchers tackling seemingly insoluble problems in the fields of science, chemistry, research, and medicine"--will prove to be both embarrassing and fruitless. Faculty in all fields reject political interference in the management of university curricula. On their behalf, the AAUP reminds UNC system leaders of their duty to fight strenuously against such political interference, and it requests that this unilateral policy be rescinded.
Contact: Jay M. Smith (History, UNC-CH), State Conference President (jaysmith@email.unc.edu)
For a PDF version of this statement, click here.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WHew9zx6T3KTzAfcy4WiyPNnkZ_ol1rV/view?usp=sharing
March 10, 2023
NC State AAUP statement on changes to Policy 300.5.1, “Political Activities of Employees,” in the University of North Carolina code
The NC State University chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) hereby expresses its opposition to the revision to Policy 300.5.1, “Political Activities of Employees,” in the University of North Carolina code, and calls for the rule to be rescinded.
The core of the revision is the following:
“… the University shall neither solicit nor require an employee or applicant for academic admission or employment to affirmatively ascribe to or opine about beliefs, affiliations, ideals, or principles regarding matters of contemporary political debate or social action as a condition to admission, employment, or professional advancement. Nor shall any employee or applicant be solicited or required to describe his or her actions in support of, or in opposition to, such beliefs, affiliations, ideals, or principles.”
These are extremely broad and vague prohibitions offered under the guise of protecting the free speech of candidates for position or admission. They go far beyond preventing a candidate from being compelled to state a given position on these matters to prohibit even posing questions about them. Under this rule, severe sanctions are proposed on university system employees who violate these prohibitions. Such sanctions clearly would “penalize or discipline members of its (University of North Carolina) faculties because of the exercise of academic freedom in the lawful pursuit of their respective areas of scholarly and professional interest and responsibility” [Section 601: University of North Carolina Code]. As such they would violate the University of North Carolina Code.
Most problematic is the phrase “matters of contemporary political debate or social action.” There are many established truths within the academy that may be matters of political debate in broader society, including, human-caused climate change, biological evolution by natural selection, the brutality of enslavement and its role in the development of the United States, and the absence of biological races in humans, among many others. Also subject to “political debate” in some circles is the value of a “diverse, equitable, and inclusive community” and the need to champion “equity, diversity, inclusion, belonging and well-being.” The former is quoted from the North Carolina State University vision and the latter from Goal 4 of the university’s strategic plan.
Under the revised policy, search committees could no longer ask candidates for faculty positions how they would teach core elements of academic disciplines, and candidates for faculty and administrative positions could no longer be asked how they would support the university’s vision and strategic goals. Frank conversations with candidates for positions and for promotion on a wide range of topics would become impossible.
As indicated above, the rule change is inconsistent with the NC State strategic plan. Beyond that we note that the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (the body that accredits NC State) states “Promoting diversity, equity and inclusion is an opportunity for institutions to recruit students of all backgrounds, identities, and abilities; to support them, adapt teaching methods and use technology to meet their needs and break down barriers to learning; and to successfully guide, mentor, retain, and graduate them. Equally important is the opportunity to recruit a diverse faculty and staff that reflects the larger society.” These positions are, once again,“matters of contemporary political debate” in some circles, so it must be questioned whether the university would be able to sustain its accreditation while adhering to the proposed rule.
Finally the rule was developed by politically appointed Board of Governors staff members, without consultation with or input from University of North Carolina faculty, including the system Faculty Assembly. This is inconsistent with any pretense of shared governance within the university.
In summary, the changes to the University of North Carolina code are inconsistent with a university that is committed to scholarly excellence and inclusive and effective instruction and that conducts its business according to established principles of shared governance. We oppose this rule change. Given the grievous harm that would be done by this rule to our university, we call upon our campus leadership and faculty colleagues to join us in speaking out against it and calling for it to be rescinded.
April 7, 2021
NC State AAUP statement on pandemic-related support for faculty
The pandemic has and will continue to have a dramatic impact on the productivity of our junior colleagues, and it will take considerable time to catch up with the effort lost during that period. Current university policy allows only assistant professors to receive a one-year extension for promotion and tenure upon request. While we support this policy, we believe the university can do much more to support faculty given the severe impacts of the pandemic.
Current policy requires faculty to explicitly request an extension. Many faculty, worried about the reactions of colleagues, may be reluctant to make this request. Instead, extensions should be given automatically to everyone, with the policy of opting out if a faculty member chooses. This is the policy of other universities (e.g., UMass Amherst and Vanderbilt).
The needs of assistant professors vary; some may benefit from a tenure clock extension, while others would prefer more time now rather than extending their clock. Assistant professors should be given the option of choosing either the extension or given a course buyout to assist them with their research. Some assistant professors in some departments are receiving course relief; this policy should be extended to all assistant professors. Stanford, for example, is offering a post-pandemic research quarter. We ask that the university provide one semester of course relief to all tenure-track faculty. Funding for this should come from central administration and not rely on departmental funds.
Current policy requires tenured faculty undergoing post-tenure review to apply to their department head and dean for approval for a one-year extension. If assistant professors receive a one-year extension simply upon request, the same policy should be applied to tenured faculty.
Faculty with children were disproportionately affected by the pandemic, and moving forward the University should consider ways to support these faculty as they work to catch up for time lost. Some work-study positions should be converted to tutoring positions, to assist faculty with younger children struggling with school. West Virginia University is offering tutoring for children of faculty and has a faculty childcare emergency relief fund. The University of Chicago offers free tutoring, and UMass-Amherst funded a faculty childcare emergency fund.
Our professional faculty play an essential role at the University, and we should consider ways to support the disruption the pandemic has had on their work and careers. For those on a multi-year contract, we recommend an automatic one-year renewal at the end of their contract. We also recognize that our part-time and full-time professional track colleagues did not receive the $1000/course preparation supplement given to tenured and tenure-track faculty, and encourage the administration to consider including retroactively professional track faculty in this supplement.
January 8, 2021
In light of recent events and the impending start of the spring semester, one of our chapter members compiled a list of resources on academic freedom in the classroom. It's important to know your rights as a faculty member. Below are a few resources for you to understand your rights.
Defining academic freedom (InsideHigherEd, December, 2010)
Faculty rights in the classroom (Aaron Nisenson, AAUP Senior Counsel)
In defense of knowledge and higher education (AAUP Committee A, 2020)
Freedom in the classroom (AAUP Committee A, 2007)
FAQs in the wake of the 2016 election (AAUP and AFT)
Academic and electronic communications (AAUP, 2014)
If the University takes action against you in a way that you believe infringes on your right to academic freedom, we can help. Please contact us at aaup.ncsu@gmail.com or contact the chapter president at paul.umbach@gmail.com .
November 30, 2020
Few faculty members know their rights or where to get help when the University takes adverse action against them. The NC State AAUP chapter is here to support faculty by providing resources and helping them understand their rights and University processes and policies.
For example, recently, a tenured faculty member requested their Faculty Discharge Hearing be open to the public. We agree with her request for transparency in this high stakes hearing and sent an email in support of openness. With the faculty member's permission, we have posted copy of the email we sent to Hearing panel members here.
Feel free to contact us should you need our support or assistance. We encourage you not to use your email when corresponding with us, and we will keep any exchanges in the strictest of confidence.
October 13, 2020
The Technician editorial raises some important points about what the administration has learned (or not learned) from the fall semester debacle. We raise many of the same arguments in our statement to Chancellor Woodson (see below).
October 1, 2020
News and Observer article (also run in the Charlotte Observer) mentions our statement and describes our concerns about spring 2021 re-opening plans.
September 28, 2020 (Read Chancellor Woodson's response to the statement)
NC State AAUP Chapter Statement on Spring 2021 Plans
Along with many other NC State faculty, members of the pending NC State chapter of the American Association of University Professors are alarmed by Chancellor Woodson’s statement on September 23, 2020 about the upcoming spring semester. The plan Chancellor Woodson announced includes a mix of hybrid, face-to-face, and online graduate and undergraduate classes and on campus housing through the spring semester.
We are concerned that the Chancellor did not take responsibility for the consequences of the University’s plans for the current semester. As of September 21, NC State reported 1,111 COVID-19 cases and identified 27 COVID clusters associated with NC State, endangering students and employees as well as the Raleigh community and the home communities of students and employees. Bringing students back to campus this fall caused major disruptions and economic hardship to many students and their families. Planning for in-person classes that were canceled two weeks later was expensive, time-consuming, and disruptive to our entire campus community.
We are troubled that the University failed to consult seriously with NC State faculty—who expected and warned of the rapid spread of Covid-19 in and around the University—nor gave weight to their concerns before making those plans.
We are gravely concerned about the plans the Chancellor has announced for the spring semester, and for deciding on these plans without broad consultation with the faculty. The fall debacle was a failed and dangerous experiment, and the lesson should be to avoid a repeat, or worse. Half-occupancy residence halls and partially-full Greek houses, as well as partial face-to-face instruction during what epidemiologists have warned, may be an exceptionally dangerous time, invites disaster onto our campus and risks further breaking trust with students, faculty, staff, and the community. We urge University leaders to keep residence halls at or below their current levels of occupation and to offer only online instruction.
On behalf of the NC State community, we ask the Chancellor to transparently develop or expand means to seek and heed input about our Covid-19 and educational policies from a broad array of affected stakeholders. These can include our pending AAUP chapter, the NCSU Grad Workers Union, staff representatives, and student advocates. All stakeholders should be provided a venue for input and participation.
September 25, 2020
Paul Umbach on WRAL discussing furloughs and opening for spring 2021