The Professor Who ‘Declared War’ on DEI at N.C. State

In February, Stephen Porter “declared war” on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at North Carolina State University, where he has worked for 14 years as a professor of higher education.

In an op-ed in the conservative National Review, Porter detailed how he believed DEI language and efforts remained embedded at his university despite changes in state law and UNC System policies. Instead, Porter wrote, DEI just went “underground.”

“I argue that laws and policies against DEI are meaningless without enforcement,” Porter wrote in a blog post on his personal website. “This led me to consider how intellectual freedom policies in North Carolina can be upheld, and I concluded that the most effective approach was to take action myself.”

The same day that he wrote the op-ed and blog post, Porter sent an email to UNC System officials with his complaint against the school. He alleged that N.C. State’s strategic plans and various websites contained DEI references, which he said violated state law and system policy. The UNC System Board of Governors repealed its DEI policy last year, directing chancellors to report back on how they were ending such efforts on their campuses. Schools across the system subsequently closed offices and reassigned dozens of jobs involved in diversity work.

A little more than two weeks after Porter sent his complaint, N.C. State announced changes to its strategic plan that removed the language Porter had taken issue with in his complaint. Many of the websites and portions of other language referenced in Porter’s complaint also vanished. Around that time, other universities across the UNC System were also scrubbing websites.

The UNC System and N.C. State did not respond to questions about whether Porter’s complaint prompted changes to strategic plans and other websites. But it certainly wasn’t the only factor at play. Since January, President Donald Trump has taken aim at diversity initiatives at every level, including directing colleges and universities to stop all race-conscious practices and cease using such language at the risk of losing federal funding.

N.C. State referred The Assembly to its February announcement of the strategic plan changes, which points to the system’s policy of neutrality on divisive issues as the reason for the modifications. A spokesperson for the system said that the Board of Governors “requires ongoing compliance with the equality policy” and “regularly hears feedback from stakeholders on all sides of issues.”

With pressure to end DEI programs coming at universities from multiple fronts, N.C. State’s purge is part of what is quickly becoming a second wave of changes to such programs at North Carolina’s public universities. While many faculty members continue to support diversity efforts, some conservative professors have worked from within their universities to help dismantle it.

After N.C. State announced that it had updated the school’s strategic plans, Porter wrote in a blog post that he had won his “first battle.” 

“All of this proves how much impact one person can have in the fight against DEI,” he wrote.

The Complaint and the Cuts

On February 8, Porter emailed his complaint to the UNC System leadership, including President Peter Hans and Board of Governors Chair Wendy Murphy. The complaint outlined four areas where Porter thought N.C. State was violating the system’s recently implemented equality policy, as well as other state laws.

First, Porter argued that N.C. State promoted DEI in various strategic plans across campus. He singled out the university-wide strategic plan for its goal to “champion a culture of equity, diversity, inclusion, belonging and well-being in all we do.” Porter also criticized school-specific strategic plans, such as pointing out language in the College of Education’s priorities that included integrating “research-based best practices related to inclusion, diversity, equity and belonging in education.”

Porter also wrote that he found 1,700 results for the acronym “DEI” across university webpages, and 4,750 results for “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” He cited several examples, including a “culture charter” for the College of Sciences that he said required staff to demonstrate “commitment to justice, equity, diversity and inclusion” and library webpages that promoted first-generation college students and Latinx Heritage Month under a “DEI” tag. Porter also argued against a requirement that faculty use students’ preferred pronouns. 

Finally, he said the university should remove or alter its land acknowledgment statement, which “honor[s] North Carolina’s Indigenous communities and the land” where the university stands. Some Indigenous leaders have promoted such statements as a way to recognize Native American tribes who were removed from their land by the U.S. government, though others have criticized the statements as merely performative. Porter said N.C. State’s statement focused “solely on Native Americans who previously owned NCSU land, while excluding mention of other previous landowners.” 

N.C. State has not removed its land acknowledgement statement. But it made many of the other changes recommended in Porter’s complaint, including revising its university-wide goal surrounding culture. The language now reads that N.C. State will champion a culture of “equality, belonging, and well-being.” The website cited in Porter’s complaint for the College of Education’s strategic plan now says “page not found.”

The language for the “culture charter” is no longer on the website cited in Porter’s complaint, and three other websites he mentioned have been taken down. Only the two library pages are still available and appear unaltered. The website for N.C. State’s Pride Center—where the pronoun policy had been posted—no longer includes language about what to do if a professor or classmate refuses to use someone’s preferred pronouns.

‘Paying a Price’

In an interview with The Assembly, Porter said he didn’t expect his complaint to prompt any changes, and he was surprised when he saw the university’s announcement reflecting updates to its strategic plan.

While Porter believes the UNC System and Board of Governors took his complaint seriously, he doesn’t think he is solely responsible for the host of DEI-related website changes happening at N.C. State and elsewhere, considering the Trump administration’s intense focus on such initiatives. The system has already mandated more changes in response to Trump, including the suspension of graduation requirements related to DEI.

Even so, Porter still believes that the university is largely “playing games with words” rather than making substantive changes. 

“They’re going for the minimal amount of changes possible, and only making changes when they’re backed into a corner,” Porter said. “They don’t think they’re doing anything wrong. They’re just sort of grudgingly making changes to avoid any further scrutiny by the board or by the General Assembly.”

Board of Governors Chair Murphy has also recently signaled that she thinks about half of UNC schools, including N.C. State, have not fully complied with the board’s directive to root out DEI.

Porter, who describes himself as a “libertarian turned populist Republican,” is a long-standing critic of DEI efforts. In 2021, he filed a lawsuit against N.C. State alleging that the university retaliated against him for criticizing diversity initiatives, which he said was protected speech. Two courts dismissed his lawsuit, ruling he did not have a First Amendment claim. His lawyers attempted to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the court declined to take his case.

Porter said he doesn’t plan to file additional DEI-related complaints at the moment. But he’s keeping a close eye on his university, including what principles like “belonging” look like in practice and whether the former DEI offices have actually ceased doing diversity work. He suspects there are more crackdowns on the horizon and says universities will have no one but themselves to blame.

“I think the faculty are arrogant at our public universities, and don’t seem to understand that all of our authority comes from the state,” he said. “They’re now paying a price for their arrogance.”

Erin Gretzinger is a higher education reporter at The Assembly. She was previously a reporting fellow at The Chronicle of Higher Education and is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. You can reach her at erin@theassemblync.com.