After Charlie Kirk’s death, a look at how NC universities stack up on free speech
Welcome to Dean’s List, a higher education newsletter from The News & Observer and me, Korie Dean.
The UNC System Board of Governors met last week, just over a week after conservative political activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot at Utah Valley University.
To start Thursday’s meeting, board Chair Wendy Murphy used her remarks to call the death of Kirk, whom she did not expressly name, a “wake-up call — for each of us as leaders, educators and policymakers — to start thinking about the impact of our actions, and about our interactions with those who disagree with our points of view.”
“We have a responsibility to be leaders for generations to come, a responsibility to set the example of how to act and live and a responsibility to set the tone to ensure we continue to be a country that truly values freedom of speech,” Murphy said. “Hatred and vitriolic attacks are not the answer.”
Board member Kathryn Greeley then gave the invocation, a standard practice for all of the group’s meetings. At the end of her prayer, Greeley said: “Please join me for a moment of silent prayer for the family and friends of Charlie Kirk. May his legacy be a testament to our Lord Jesus Christ and to the practice of civil debate.”
The Chronicle of Higher Education described Kirk’s death as an “historic moment that will jolt already-intense debates about free speech, civil discourse, and political polarization on college campuses.”
Amid the fallout, two new reports shed light on how North Carolina’s universities — public and private — stack up on free speech.
This week’s newsletter takes a dive into those reports. Also included:
- The UNC System’s move to hire a chief AI officer;
- News about enrollment trends, possible tuition raises and salary spending across the system;
- and more.
How NC colleges rank on free speech
At a committee meeting Wednesday, the Board of Governors reviewed the annual “Report on Free Speech and Free Expression Within the University of North Carolina.” The report, which is required under state law and system policy, covered events and campus activity between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025.
The top-line finding of this year’s report is that UNC System schools “remain committed to promoting and protecting free speech and free expression.”
The report highlights several events campuses hosted last year, including an appearance by Kirk at UNC-Chapel Hill for his “You’re Being Brainwashed” tour last October. The UNC Young Democrats also hosted Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost last August, the report notes.
No school “reported material institutional barriers or disruption of free expression during the academic year.” But the report notes three campuses — UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC Charlotte and UNC Asheville — “reported student and outsider gatherings of varying size that resulted in some level of campus protest activities that in a few instances escalated and consequently arrests ensued.”
- At UNC, such activity included an incident on Sept. 19, 2024, in which pro-Palestinian protesters spray-painted messages on the walls of campus buildings. “One arrest was made” in connection with that demonstration, the report states.
- Additionally, the report notes UNC significantly ramped up security measures last October during the one-year anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.
Per the report, UNC spent roughly $52,000 on additional costs “beyond standard staffing” related to protecting free expression last year, making it the only campus to report substantial expenses. It’s unclear when or how these funds were spent; I’ve requested associated receipts and invoices from the university but have not yet received any documents.
The report also notes the Board of Governors passed a new policy on campus gatherings earlier this year, marking the first time the UNC System has regulated protests in a single directive across its 17 campuses.
“The annual obligations that produce this report effect a culture of periodic ‘well visits’ checking into the health of free expression on our campuses,” the report concludes. “This report confirms that the transparency and accountability required by the originating legislation are having their desired effect, and the content of this report remains consistent generally year over year.”
In related news, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) released its annual College Free Speech Rankings on Sept. 9.
The rankings, based on the experiences of 68,500 students at more than 250 colleges, score schools in a host of categories, from how comfortable students feel expressing ideas, to how they view administrators’ support of free speech, and more. FIRE also assigns schools a green, yellow or red rating based on their scores.
Several North Carolina colleges are in the top 25 of this year’s rankings, while others are in the middle of the pack — or even lower:
- UNC Greensboro ranked 6th nationally
- Appalachian State University ranked 8th
- NC State University ranked 10th
- East Carolina University ranked 14th
- UNC-Chapel Hill ranked 19th
- UNC Charlotte ranked 20th
- Duke University ranked 37th
- NC A&T State University ranked 51st
- Davidson College ranked 78th
- Wake Forest University ranked 186th
You can find the full rankings and search for other schools’ ratings on the FIRE website.
ICYMI: Catch up on these headlines
I have several headlines to share from last week. First up, two from the Board of Governors meetings:
- Tuition in the UNC System could go up next year, but not everyone will pay more
- Enrollment is up at all UNC System schools, except one that ‘took a hit’ from Helene
And some more UNC System news, providing an update on a story I broke this summer:
Plus another update, this time taking a look at whether international student enrollment went down this fall like some had predicted it would:
And finally, news about the latest North Carolina university to offer free tuition:
UNC System to hire chief AI officer
UNC System President Peter Hans used his remarks at last week’s Board of Governors meetings to talk about artificial intelligence — the aspects he’s “excited” about, those he’s “worried” about, and “what we as a university system are doing about it.”
To start, Hans compared the current moment with AI to the “uncertainty that accompanied the internet’s explosion into public life 30 years ago.”
“I am not going to sit here today and make confident predictions about how all of this is going to play out. Much of the early prognosticating about the Internet has not aged well. The bright-eyed futurists who thought the internet would usher us to an end-of-history paradise were wrong; the pessimists who thought the internet would be a death blow to universities were also wrong,” Hans said. “I suspect the AI story will play out in a similar muddle somewhere between utopia and annihilation.”
Hans noted several areas across the system where he views AI as a promising tool, including its ability to “accelerate discovery” and improve day-to-day operations.
But there are concerns, he noted, saying that “the same tools that promise to advance our understanding of the world also threaten to overwhelm our ability to find true knowledge in a sea of questionable information.”
To combat those risks, Hans spoke about three efforts the system will implement:
- Hiring a chief AI officer “to help us oversee AI strategy for the system and aid our campuses with their own integration.”
- Providing resources to campuses, including possible licensing agreements with Amazon, OpenAI, Google and Microsoft “to make sure that our faculty, staff and students will have access to the most advanced versions of these tools.”
- Aligning the system’s work with the state’s workforce needs, including launching a new “AI skills module” for students that could be available to North Carolina residents.
“On every one of our campuses, there are brilliant people thinking hard about these possibilities and risks,” Hans said. “And we’re eager to support them at the system level.”
You can find Hans’ full remarks on the UNC System website.
Higher ed news I’m reading
- The U.S. Department of Education placed Harvard University, which has a $53 billion endowment, on heightened cash-monitoring — a status that is typically reserved for institutions in dire financial straits, Inside Higher Ed reports.
- The Trump administration canceled a grant that funded a UNC-Chapel Hill program to train future preschool teachers to better serve students with disabilities, WUNC reports.
See you next time
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This story was originally published September 23, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "After Charlie Kirk’s death, a look at how NC universities stack up on free speech."
