How a chancellor can be removed in the UNC System
On Wednesday, UNC-Chapel Hill faculty are set to hold an emergency meeting to discuss concerns that state politicians, university trustees and UNC System Board of Governors members could move to replace Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz.
Guskiewicz, who was named UNC’s 12th chancellor in December 2019, has come under fire for the public fallout around the recruitment of journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones.
Additionally, N.C. Senate Leader Phil Berger recently expressed frustrations with UNC-CH leadership, following News & Observer reports about UNC-CH chief fundraiser David Routh’s outside work. “It looks to me that we have a flagship that’s rudderless,” Berger told The N&O, referring to years of problems at UNC-CH.
How exactly can a chancellor be fired?
In 2020, the UNC System adopted new rules that give the president — Peter Hans — more power to decide who is hired as chancellor at each campus. Faculty across the system have argued against that policy change, saying it was a “power grab” that diminishes the input from campus constituents.
The policy has not yet been in effect for any recent chancellor search.
But the Board of Governors also holds significant sway in the ability to terminate a chancellor’s contract.
According to the UNC System’s policy manual, “the continuance in office of the chancellor ... is determined by the Board of Governors,” which can terminate the appointment of a chancellor on its own or with a recommendation of the president.
The Board of Governors is made up of 24 individuals — all of them elected by the Senate and House of Representatives of the North Carolina General Assembly.
Those two houses are controlled by Republican majorities at the moment, giving Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore wide influence on the shape of the board. Every current member of the UNC System Board of Governors has been appointed under a Republican-led legislature.
Hans, the UNC System president, also has the power to place a chancellor on temporary leave — with or without pay — if he believes that illness, injury, misconduct, neglect of duty or other circumstances interfere with their performance.
If Hans — who was elected to his position by the Board of Governors — were to terminate Guskiewicz, however, he would need to consult first with the UNC-CH Board of Trustees.
The boards of trustees for all 17 UNC system campuses are also appointed by the General Assembly. North Carolina governors once had the ability to make some appointments to university boards of trustees across the state. But in 2016, the legislature took away that power weeks before current Gov. Roy Cooper took office.
Like the Board of Governors, every member of the UNC-CH Board of Trustees has been appointed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly.
Last week, Cooper blamed the university’s loss of Hannah-Jones on conservative politics.
“It is but one symptom of a Republican legislative leadership that has broken university governance by appointing mostly ultra-conservative trustees and members of the Board of Governors who toe the legislature’s right-wing line and don’t reflect the diversity of our state,” Cooper said in a statement. “Our great university’s faculty and students and most North Carolinians value diversity and inclusion and we must change the system so that our appointed university leadership values it too.”
This story was originally published July 14, 2021 at 1:22 PM with the headline "How a chancellor can be removed in the UNC System."