UNC faces pressure to release controversial SCiLL program files

While a UNC-Chapel Hill sorority hosted a water slide party on its front lawn and soon-to-be graduates sprinkled campus, posing for portraits in their gowns, a smaller but louder crowd gathered outside the South Building to call for the university administration to “release the files.” No, not those files — the SCiLL files.

It was the second consecutive week of protest at UNC as faculty and students have continued to call for the release of the $1.2 million investigation into the university’s controversial School of Civic Life and Leadership, or SCiLL.

Since its inception in 2023, SCiLL has drawn criticism for its hasty confirmation, connections to conservative scholars and ideals and later for its significant turnover rate. A majority of the school’s founding faculty resigned following the appointment of Jed Atkins, formerly the director of Duke University’s Civil Discourse Project, as dean and director.

“As I see it, SCiLL has lost sight of its mission,” wrote former associate dean Inger Brodey in her resignation email last year, according to reporting by The Daily Tar Heel. She told the student newspaper she had lost faith in the director’s leadership.

David Decosimo came to SCiLL from Boston University in 2024, where he was the director of the Institute for Philosophy and Religion. He had been speaking out against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives well before being recruited by UNC. But shortly after joining the school as associate dean, he criticized its hiring decisions as being the equivalent of “affirmative action” for conservatives. He announced he had been fired in September.

On account of the faculty turnover, the university said it would bring in outside firm K&L Gates to conduct an “independent and impartial” review of SCiLL in September of 2025.

UNC announced K&L Gates had completed its review of the school March 6 but swiftly denied public records requests seeking the full report or even a summary. In a statement, the university said it would not be releasing the report because it includes “a series of allegations that implicate sensitive and confidential personnel information that is protected by state law and University policy.”

Legal case

Carolina Public Press and five other news organizations filed a lawsuit against UNC, Chancellor Lee H. Roberts and General Counsel Paul Newton April 10 to order the release of the report, arguing that it is a public record even if it contains some confidential information.

“Because the K&L Gates report was made at the request of and on behalf of the University, was paid for by the University out of public funds, and was received by the University, it is facially and presumptively public record as defined by the North Carolina Public Records Law,” the lawsuit states.

“… In public statements issued on behalf of the University, Defendant Newton stated that the issues reviewed in the report included ‘a series of allegations that implicate sensitive and confidential personnel information that is protected by state law and University policy.’

“… Given the nature and putative scope of the investigation, however, Plaintiffs are informed and believe that significant portions of the report do not ‘implicate sensitive and confidential personnel information.’ Moreover, to the extent that it does, the Public Records Law requires the University, at its expense, to separate such information from non-confidential information and release the latter.”

The UNC Faculty Council approved two resolutions April 17 calling for transparency related to SCiLL and the K&L Gates report. One suggested the university release the report with redactions to protect confidential personnel information, if necessary.

There’s precedent for releasing such investigations, the faculty argued. When an academic fraud scandal plagued the athletics program and prompted a review of the Department of African and Afro-American Studies in 2014, the university released the report in full.

UNC student protests

Toby Posel co-founded the student group TransparUNCy as a political education project for undergraduates. The group joined the climate justice organization Sunrise Movement, the Black Student Movement, social justice hub Campus Y and others Friday on UNC’s South Building quad.

Hannah Hayes with the Sunrise Movement told the crowd that despite primarily focusing on climate justice issues, the Movement is invested in the “corruption” of SCILL because climate justice is linked with all struggles for social justice.

“Sunrise understands that the same people who authored Project 2025 — and part of Project 2025 includes establishing schools like SCiLL on campuses across the country — are also the same people obliterating our environmental protection laws,” Hayes said.

“At Sunrise, we believe that in order to safeguard our environment in the future, we need to safeguard democratic values and address authoritarian repression now.”

Project 2025, a sweeping policy blueprint aimed at implementing conservative ideals throughout various facets of the federal government, was constructed by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. While President Donald Trump rejected ties to the plan during his 2024 candidacy, much of his approach to education policy in 2025 was in line with the project, including dismantling DEI programs, reforming university accreditation and attempting to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education.

Right-wing foothold at UNC?

Critics of SCiLL say the school is just one example of the growing foothold conservative ideals are taking on college campuses. Other leading public universities like University of Florida and University of Texas at Austin opened “intellectual freedom centers,” the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education and the School of Civic Leadership, respectively, around the same time as SCiLL.

SCiLL is just one part of the vanguard of new right-wing programs popping up at flagship universities in Republican-controlled states, Posel told CPP. They can often be identified by their language — civil discourse, civic engagement, Western civilization, American founding. It’s particularly perilous because it’s not immediately clear what the ideological aims are, he said.

So UNC’s SCiLL was not the first of its kind, but Posel does think it is the most dangerous.

“The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is one of the leading public universities in the nation,” Posel said.

“They are constantly touting their public ivy status, how rigorous their education is, how impressive the Carolina degree is. They claim a level of institutional legitimacy and credibility that is not necessarily the case at all of these other 50 schools that pop up.”

SCiLL’s leadership by Jed Atkins is also unique. Posel believes Atkins sees his mission as one meant to advance a right-wing agenda at UNC and that he’s doing so unconstrained by the university.

The university has stood by Atkins through SCiLL’s faculty turnover and criticism lodged at him, and it seems it will continue to after the conclusion of the K&L Gates investigation.

“Under Dean Atkins’ leadership, SCiLL is emerging as a program of national significance, dedicated to advancing civic literacy, promoting free inquiry, and encouraging thoughtful dialogue across political and intellectual differences,” a statement by the UNC Board of Trustees reads.

“Preparing students for principled participation in civic life has long been part of the University of North Carolina’s historic mission of educating citizens for service to the state and the nation. The Board looks forward to supporting Dean Atkins and the continued growth of the School of Civic Life and Leadership.”

Push for accountability

Posel is set to graduate in less than two weeks. He uses one of his few final days as an undergraduate Tar Heel to host the rally calling on the university to “release the files.”

He knows that phrase invokes thoughts of the U.S. Department of Justice’s files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, he said. That’s actually the point.

“We live in an era of abuses of power and a total lack of accountability in public institutions,” he told CPP.

“… People feel that very deeply, people feel like their voice does not matter. People feel like, no matter what we do, our leadership, at every level of society, is never gonna be accountable to us. That feeling produces deep cynicism and outrage, frankly, and disrespect. So my messaging to students is, we might not get the Epstein files, but we can get the Atkins files, right?”