“Coming from Chancellor Level”: UNC Greensboro Lecturer Admits DEI Content Remains Despite System-Wide Ban
June 11, 2026
In May 2024, the University of North Carolina Board of Governors repealed its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies, eliminating DEI offices, titles, and branded language across the state’s public universities.
However, an undercover investigation by Accuracy in Media suggests that while the language may have changed, the underlying content has not.
Ariane Cox, a Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Criminology, and Justice at UNC Greensboro, was recorded describing how the university is responding to the policy shift.
“The university has had to remove language about DEI because of the executive order,” Cox said, before clarifying that leadership is working to preserve the substance behind it.
“The university and chancellor and provost are very supportive of trying to keep as much of what would be considered DEI.”
Cox stressed that classroom instruction has not been altered.
“So, nothing that I teach has been changed… this administration is very supportive of trying to keep that.”
According to Cox, courses tied to DEI-related subject matter remain in place, even if terminology has been adjusted to comply with the new rules.
“All the classes that met that requirement have remained the same… it’s a requirement of our majors, Social Inequalities, Race, Class and Gender.”
When asked directly whether the shift was merely cosmetic, Cox confirmed it was.
She further acknowledged that the changes are clearly limited to wording, not substance.
“If there is the overt use of the words Diversity, Equity, or Inclusion… we’re not like in any kind of mass way using those terms. But we have not taken any content away.”
Cox also indicated that this approach is being driven from the top levels of the university.
“That’s coming from [the] chancellor level… the university is very supportive in doing whatever it can to preserve this and to fight as much as possible.”
The recording suggests that despite the UNC system’s formal repeal of DEI policies, administrators and faculty may be actively working to maintain the same ideological framework under different terminology.
The Board of Governors intended to eliminate DEI from the state’s public universities—not simply rebrand it. If universities are preserving the same content while making superficial alterations to the language, the policy’s purpose is being undermined.
Take action now by visiting SaveNCSchools.com to send a message directly to the University of North Carolina Board of Governors. Public universities should not be allowed to sidestep their own governance structure so that they can continue to promote the same divisive ideology under a different name.