A former UNC-Charlotte employee, Janique Sanders, is suing the university for racial discrimination and two administrators for a First Amendment rights violation. The university fired Sanders in May 2025 after undercover individuals recorded videos that showed Sanders alluding to continued diversity practices at the university despite the widespread dismantling of DEI in the UNC System.
Sanders was employed by the university’s Office of Identity, Equity and Engagement until it was shut down in 2024, as well as two other offices with a similar purpose, after the UNC System repealed its diversity policies across its 17 institutions. At the time of her termination, she was an assistant director in the Office of Leadership and Community Engagement.
An announcement of the closures from UNC-Charlotte in August 2024 stated full-time staff from the affected offices were “provided employment opportunities elsewhere on campus.” The lawsuit claims Sanders’ former office was “reorganized” and some diversity work “remained intact,” though it’s unclear in what capacity.
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More than a year after the UNC System repealed the policy, videos began to circulate of staff at a number of schools in the system, each stating that the universities where they worked were continuing to incorporate diversity initiatives despite the policy change.
Undercover reporters working for a group called Accuracy in Media filmed Sanders and others discussing these details unknowingly. The covert tactic is sometimes described by critics as “gotcha journalism,” an interviewing method intended to elicit statements that could be damaging to the interviewee’s image, though AIM president Adam Guillette rejected the term in an interview with CPP in June.
In the video, Sanders tells the individuals, who appear to be inquiring about getting involved with DEI initiatives happening on the UNC-Charlotte campus, “If you’re looking for, like, a(n) outward DEI position — not going to happen. But if you are interested in doing work that is covert, there are opportunities.”
The lawsuit states the video was filmed in the fall of 2024, months after the System repealed the policies. The video wasn’t posted online until May 28, 2025. Just one day later, UNC-Charlotte announced Sanders was no longer employed by the university following an internal review. The statement said her comments were inaccurate and she had no policymaking authority or role in compliance with UNC System policies.
The lawsuit questions the validity of the internal investigation on the basis that Sanders was not questioned by a university investigator or provided with specific grounds for her termination.
“While (UNC-Charlotte’s) spokesperson alluded to an internal review that preceded Sanders’ firing, the ‘review’ lacks any hallmarks of genuine investigation,” the lawsuit states.
“Sanders was not interviewed or asked to provide a defense or rationale for her taped comments. Upon information and beliefs, (UNC-Charlotte) did not seek and has never obtained the entire footage of AIM’s recording of Sanders.”
Guillette told CPP in June the multiple North Carolina universities that were featured in AIM’s undercover reporting did not ask for the unedited footage, though he said that indicated the universities were not interested in addressing noncompliance.
“When we actually released the video, at no point did any of them follow up with me,” Guillette said.
“At no point did any of them request the video. And in many instances, if we’re dealing with honest brokers, we are more than happy to have shared the full unedited videos of these scenarios, so the fact that they never responded to us is proof that hidden camera tactics are needed and proof that these people are clearly engaged in deception.”
Sanders’ attorney and former U.S. Congressman Artur Davis also criticized UNC-Charlotte’s lack of inquiry into the full footage for what he sees as a failure to obtain both sides of the story.
“Even if there’s a world where they say, ‘Well, this is a third party over whom we have no control, so therefore we can’t expect that we’re going to get their video tape.’ Why not simply ask her, what’d you say, and what didn’t you say, and what did you tell them?” Davis said.
“That’s the core level of fairness here. So there is a problem, in my view, both legal and moral, that UNC-Charlotte did not take the time to hear Janique Sanders’ side of the story.”
A UNCC representative told CPP the university does not comment on pending litigation.
Prior to filing the lawsuit, Sanders filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the EEOC, alleging race discrimination as a motivating factor in her termination. The EEOC granted Sanders a right-to-sue letter in September, leading her to file a Title VII claim against the university.
The motivating factor element of the claim is important, Davis said, because while it is possible in discrimination lawsuits like Sanders’ that other legitimate reasons for termination exist, it still bars race or other aspects of identity from being a factor at all.
“We do expect that there is probably going to be an argument from UNC-Charlotte that Ms. Sanders was not authorized to talk about internal campus policies, that she was not authorized to talk to people outside of the school about the DEI changes that have been enacted within the institution,” Davis said.
“They may very well say that. Now, we contend that there is no written policy that she violated and she was never told she violated a policy, but let’s assume that they say she violated policy she was never told about and that was not publicized. She would still be able to argue that the decision that they made somewhere along the way, in effect, gave weight to racism or gave weight to racial bias.”
The lawsuit lays out the claim of racial discrimination by stating there is no evidence that UNCC attempted to verify whether “other non-black officials in Sanders’ department have made comments similar to Sanders’ viewpoint or determine the forum in which any similar comments were made; or that UNCC analyzed whether AIM’s conduct itself reflects a racially biased agenda.”
“Race was at least a motivating factor in UNCC’s termination of Sanders, in that the university ratified or condoned AIM’s actions that are at least partially ringed by racially biased assumptions,” the lawsuit states.
The way in which Sanders was terminated is not how UNC-Charlotte typically handles such scenarios, also indicating racial bias was a factor, Davis said. Sanders’ legal team will be analyzing how the university engages with and has responded to employees that have shared their personal viewpoints on hot topics in the past.
“The evidence in this case is going to show that there have been numerous other instances when individuals who were not Black and who were not female raised concerns, articulated viewpoints on a range of controversial issues, and they didn’t lose their jobs because of it,” Davis said.
Sanders’ case also includes two allegations of violations to her First Amendment rights which are aimed at the two administrators who fired her, Executive Director of the Division of Student Affairs Frank Fleming, who has since retired, and Associate Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Karen Shaffer.
The lawsuit states Fleming and Shaffer failed to convey the rule Sanders violated or how she breached the Board of Governors’ anti-DEI directives, which “indicate that UNCC’s legitimate interests in efficient administration did not outweigh Plaintiff’s constitutional interest in free speech.”
AIM’s series of videos at North Carolina universities also included staff members from Western Carolina University, UNC-Asheville and UNC-Wilmington. WCU and UNCA both announced the individuals were no longer employed after the release of the videos. UNCW said it was looking into the actions of the two individuals in AIM’s video, though both are still employed according to university records.
Davis does not know of any other lawsuits filed by those terminated in the aftermath of AIM’s undercover operation, but he expects Sanders won’t be the only one to take action on what he sees as a First Amendment violation in addition to discrimination, in Sanders’ case.
Sanders is seeking lost wages due to her subsequent unemployment since being terminated and compensatory damages for emotional distress. She also seeks punitive damages, which go beyond monetary and other tangible losses addressed by compensatory damages, in regard to the claims against Fleming and Shaffer.
Her team is also requesting a trial by jury as is customary in employment discrimination and other civil rights cases. UNCC has yet to respond to the lawsuit in court.
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