Conservatives move to weaken North Carolina university’s advocacy

RALEIGH, N.C. — A center founded at the University of North Carolina by a civil rights attorney to help the poor and disenfranchised is the latest institution to come under fire from conservatives as they work to leave their mark on the state’s higher education system.

African American attorney Julius Chambers, who endured firebomb attacks in the 1960s and 1970s as he fought segregation, founded the UNC Center for Civil Rights in 2001, serving as its first director.

[...] conservatives on the state Board of Governors, which sets policy for the 16-campus system, want to strip the center of its ability to file lawsuits, removing its biggest weapon.

Proponents say the move isn’t ideological, but that the center’s courtroom work strays from the education mission of the country’s oldest public university.

The proposal is “strictly, certainly and undoubtedly ideological,” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill law professor Gene Nichol wrote via email.

Board member Steve Long said the center must refocus on its education mission, and “one of the things you say no to is public interest law firms.”

When Concerned Citizens for Successful Schools in Johnston County sought records proving its poor and minority students weren’t getting equal education opportunities, the local school board balked.

Member Johnny Hollingsworth said the center was serving its education mission: “I can’t think of a better way to train new lawyers than through practical, hands-on experience.”