Several public colleges in the South have parted ways with administrators who admitted during an undercover video sting to ignoring recent bans on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Investigators from the conservative watchdog group Accuracy in Media secretly filmed seven interviews with unsuspecting college staffers in Texas, Florida and North Carolina over the past year. The videos went viral on social media, prompting calls for the staffers’ ouster.
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the University of North Carolina at Asheville, Western Carolina University and the University of Texas at Tyler have since confirmed that the staff members no longer work for them.
The University of South Florida, the University of West Florida and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington are still reviewing the other three videos.
Adam Guillette, Accuracy in Media’s president, said the investigation confirms that bans on publicly funded DEI programs “are often worse than worthless” because campuses usually rebrand race-based outreach to minority students instead of ending it.
“The radicals who run our education system view social justice and racial justice as their evangelical mission,” Mr. Guillette said. “When DEI positions are eliminated, they generally just print new business cards with new titles while doing the same work.”
The four employees who departed after getting caught on camera were Western Carolina Institutional Assessment Director Karen Price, UNC Asheville Dean of Students Megan Pugh, UT Tyler Director of Student Belonging Tarecka Payne and UNC Charlotte Assistant Director of Community and Engagement Janique Sanders.
Most of the institutions did not respond to an email, and the former staffers could not be reached for comment.
A spokesperson for Western Carolina confirmed to The Washington Times that Ms. Price departed “on her own accord” in mid-April, two months before Accuracy in Media published her interview. Nevertheless, her departure came after she admitted on camera to “absolutely still doing” DEI work, even though the Cullowhee campus eliminated its chief diversity officer role in 2024.
“Western Carolina University complies fully with the spirit and letter of all state and federal laws and UNC System policies on equality and institutional neutrality,” the statement read. “The director of institutional assessment, featured in the video, has no role in policy or compliance decisions and was not authorized to speak on behalf of the university.”
A UNC Asheville spokesman likewise confirmed the departure of Ms. Pugh, who told an undercover interviewer that she had to keep DEI work “quiet” and on the “down-low” but that she loved “breaking rules.”
“These remarks do not represent the practices of UNC Asheville,” said the spokesman, Brian Hart. “The university remains firmly committed to upholding all UNC System policies as well as federal and state laws, both in principle and in practice.”
Mr. Hart added that the school was “undertaking a comprehensive internal review” and holding faculty meetings to ensure compliance with state and federal policies.
New state and federal policies over the past two years have obliged public colleges to dismantle race-based programs designed to boost Black, Hispanic and American Indian students.
The Supreme Court overturned race-based preferences for college admissions in June 2023. That led to officials in Texas, Florida and North Carolina ordering a purge of all diversity offices and programs at public campuses.
Backing them up at the federal level, President Trump issued an executive order in January that forbade public funding for all race-based hiring, admissions and student benefit programs.
“That sham virtue signaling of DEI has no place in our country, and the Trump administration is working tirelessly to erase this divisive, backward and unjust practice from our society,” said White House spokesman Harrison Fields.
At the University of Virginia, which replaced a “diversity and inclusion” office with an office of “inclusive excellence,” President James Ryan resigned last week amid a Trump administration investigation into his refusal to end DEI practices.
“The United States Department of Justice has a zero-tolerance policy toward illegal discrimination in publicly funded universities,” said Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, a UVA alumna.
The Trump administration has insisted that racial preferences in public funding violate federal civil rights law, which forbids any discrimination that favors one group of people over another based on skin color.
“Accuracy in Media has performed a valuable service by making public DEI advocates’ plans, in their own words, to defy laws and regulations banning DEI,” said David Randall, research director for the conservative National Association of Scholars. “These university presidents and deans should examine every single position and regulation to ensure compliance with the laws and regulations banning DEI and make public annual reports of their actions to their boards and to state lawmakers.”
On the other side of the issue, social justice advocates accuse the White House of using “DEI” as a catch-all to target programs that bolster college outcomes for historically disadvantaged racial groups.
“The fact that this administration, one that has never fully defined what DEI is, is using DEI to cancel the diversification of America should be despised by everyone,” said Omekongo Dibinga, a professor of intercultural communications affiliated with American University’s Antiracist Research and Policy Center.
Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at South Texas College of Law in Houston, said most public colleges incorrectly gambled that the Trump administration would overlook their efforts to continue DEI programs more quietly.
“I think many schools have been playing fast and loose, and now Trump is calling them out,” Mr. Blackman said.
