Perception is reality with UNC Board of Governors
Excerpts of a letter Charlotte lawyer Luke Largess, of Tin Fulton Walker & Owen, sent to the UNC Board of Governors after it voted to close three centers at the university:
The illogic in closing three university centers to save $6,000 a year, and the feckless public denials that this vote had anything to do with the viewpoints of those three programs, has been a demonstration of the rationalization of power that may be the most important life lesson my two children currently enrolled in the UNC system will learn during their college years.
From the outside looking in, there has been a sea change in the composition of the Board of Governors at the direction of the legislature and the governor. They ordered this review in last year’s appropriations bill. It was not your idea. The super majority in the legislature has denounced any use of science in long range coastal planning, and you have closed an ECU biodiversity center located in that coastal plain and declared that the remaining nine marine science and coastal studies centers will be subject to a separate “special” review. The legislature passed a voter ID law that has been criticized as targeting minority voters, and you closed a center at a historically black university that promoted voter registration in minority communities. The legislature has also passed lightning-rod changes in social programs, including dramatic new eligibility rules for unemployment insurance and the refusal of Medicaid expansion. And you close a UNC center studying poverty, whose head is one of the fiercest critics of those new policies.
Perception is reality. You have created a perception that the BOG wants to control points of view on issues that are politically important to those who appointed you. You have conveyed such a short-sighted vision of the University system’s role in the state that it deeply troubles many, many people. This is a low-water mark in UNC history.
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article13832051.html#storylink=cpy
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Last edited Sat Mar 14, 2015, 06:12 AM - Edit history (1)
Please, if you care about anywhere outside your own area, donate to a progressive cause in NC. The Republicans are in control here, and they are wielding their power with a vengeance. This state has many progressives. In fact, many more Democratic votes were cast than Republican in the last election. Yet, thanks to partisan redistricting, the power consolidates further. We want to fight back, but look at circumstances like the OP, and realize that we are fighting long odds.
Some of you reading this may know me as one of the 'gungeon dwelling apes' (to borrow a quote from, DU'er Triana 
). And it's true, I ike firearms collecting, target shooting, and a libertarian (note small 'l') interpretation of the Second Amendment. But in addition to all that, I know that I have neighbors who believe that Democrats are gun-grabbing nanny staters. And here I am desperately trying to convince them that believing in a social safety net, women's control over their own bodies, and people's right to marry whom they please is anything but anti-American. Guns are an unnecessarily divisive issue. NC needs to fight poverty, support education, build its public infrastructure, protect its environment, and otherwise enact a progressive future. And it's my view that gun control issues will only alienate too much of the NC populace to make this progressive future ever come to fruition.
Anyway, whether you agree with me on the 2nd Amendment or not, please realize that there are many, many issues in NC, and we need all the help (and rational prioritization) we can get.
-app
