UNC administrator admits she uses ‘finesse’ to evade DEI ban
May 28, 2025
A university administrator in North Carolina at Charlotte confessed that she uses “finesse” to get around the Board of Governors’ ban on Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion and discussed “covert” opportunities to keep doing DEI work.
In May 2024, the Board of Governors for the University of North Carolina system banned DEI. Administrators, however, are plotting ways to evade the ban.
When confronted by AIM’s investigators, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Assistant Director of Leadership & Community Engagement Jacqueline Sanders said she can’t say that, but, they’ve “renamed, we’ve reorganized, we’ve recalibrated, so to speak.”
“Because language changes, right?” she said. “But the people who have to be in the presence of, and in the space, don’t change.”
“I think the guise that we’re using in some regard is like leadership, in order to lead diverse groups of people, you have to know about diverse groups of people,” she explained. “We don’t have to call them ‘diverse groups of people.’ We can just say that everybody has different stocks of knowledge.”
“That’s what I told my students this year, the word of the year is ‘finesse,’” Sanders said. “So, there are certain things that I can’t say. And I haven’t said them this whole time. I’m pretty good at learning how to be PC.”
She said that while there are no “outward” DEI positions available at the school, there are “covert” positions available.
“If you’re looking for, like, a outward DEI position, not going to happen,” she told AIM. “But if you are interested in doing work that is covert, there are opportunities.”
AIM confronted UNC Charlotte Provost Jennifer Troyer about the undercover video. She responded by telling AIM, “I’m not talking to you!”
Senior Associate Provost Lee Gray ran away after abruptly asking if AIM had spoken to the communications department, rather than discussing the footage.
You can send a message to the UNC Board of Governors and tell them administrators should not be openly flouting violating the rule banning DEI by going to SaveNCSchools.com.