UNC Wilmington administrator brags about being ‘sneaky’ to evade DEI ban in Accuracy in Media investigation
June 19, 2025
Accuracy in Media is continuing to expose the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) that is still embedded within the University of North Carolina system by radical ideological administrators. That’s despite the Board of Governors’ ban.
At the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, administrators bragged about being “sneaky” to get around the ban, and how new DEI-related positions were merely rebranded and reassigned.
“They’re trying to be a little sneaky, I feel like, with certain things in the plan,” said Asher Pershin. Pershin is the Center Coordinator for the Mohin-Scholz LGBTQIA Resource Center.
Asked explicitly if they have to be “sneaky” with it, Pershin confirmed, “Yes.”
When discussing the possibility of doing anti-racism work, Pershin said, “Even that word alone is not something that necessarily is going to be the verbiage,” because it would have to be renamed.
“They’re trying to be a little sneaky, I feel like, with certain things in the plan,” Pershin explained. “We didn’t have to fire anybody or lay off anybody as they really reassigned. Like, we were a team of like 15. There’s four of us now.”
“No, you didn’t fire anybody,” Pershin explained. “But let’s be clear on like who’s actually working on DEI stuff now, even though I think the diversity center is something. So things like that.”
Ashlee Fleming, Upperman African American Cultural Center Coordinator, which is reportedly still part of the Multicultural Student Success and Resource Centers, said in terms of DEI-related jobs, “It says ‘eliminated’ in a lot of the reports, but if you look at the other pages, it shows that they kind of just like created new-ish position.”
“So, you can kind of see some that were eliminated, but technically ‘replaced,’” she said.
“It looks like a lot of money that’s been moved around, so it’s basically just tracking the money,” Fleming said.
You can watch the full video here.
The rebranding of DEI work, DEI jobs, and DEI spending, is a violation of the Board of Governors’ ban. AIM has already made a difference at UNC Charlotte, UNC Asheville, and Western Carolina University, where administrators were no longer in their positions after being exposed by AIM’s investigators. It’s clear more action still needs to be taken.
Go to SaveNCSchools.com to let the Board of Governors know that DEI needs to be rooted out throughout the university system, and that begins with eliminating radicals from their positions.