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CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina public university leaders decided Friday to kill an anti-poverty center headed by a sharp critic of Republican lawmakers and Gov. Pat McCrory, taking their vote after protesters disrupted their meeting and were led out by campus police,
The University of North Carolina Board of Governors, which consists almost entirely of Republican appointees, voted to disband the think-tank created to help launch John Edwards' presidential campaign and run by a law professor and former Democratic candidate for Congress from Colorado.
About two dozen protesters disrupted the Charlotte meeting to oppose closing the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and two other campus centers. One by one, they read from a statement before being told to leave and led out by campus police.
State university leaders moved to a smaller room, allowing in board members, reporters and staffers and leaving protesters chanting outside.
The poverty center is headed by Gene Nichol, who was the law school's dean when he helped create the center ahead of Democrat John Edwards' 2008 campaign. Nichol has acidly criticized policies advanced by McCrory and Republican lawmakers. In one 2013 essay, he compared McCrory to 1960s-era segregationist Southern governors because of his support for tougher election laws. Subsequent newspaper opinion pieces included the disclaimer that Nichol doesn't speak for UNC.
Nichols said the board's decision was an effort to punish him as the center's director "for publishing articles that displease the Board and its political benefactors."
"Were I to have praised the legislature's war on poor people, rather than decrying it, the Board would have placed laurels on my head instead of boots on my neck," he said in an emailed statement.
Board member James Holmes said it was a coincidence that the three centers ordered closed were perceived to promote liberal values. He headed the probe of nearly 250 centers and institutes across the 16 state university campuses, which also resulted in eight centers voluntarily shutting down.
"Politics had nothing to do with this," Holmes said.
State taxpayers provide no direct funding for the three facilities ordered closed by September: the poverty center, the Institute for Civic Engagement and Social Change at North Carolina Central University and the Center for Biodiversity at East Carolina University. Howard said he didn't know if closing the centers would save taxpayer money.
The poverty center's $107,000 budget comes from corporate and foundation grants and private gifts, according to the law school.
Howard's committee said the poverty center should be closed because it "did not provide a wide range of alternatives for addressing poverty;" other anti-poverty efforts are underway on the Chapel Hill campus; and it is not clear how the center meets the law school's educational mission. The center's activities included a 2012 tour of some of North Carolina's poorest communities to draw attention to the poverty facing about one in six state residents.
Opposing the poverty center's closing are law school dean Jack Boger, a national professors' association, liberal advocates and outgoing UNC system President Tom Ross, who was told last month he's being ousted. Closing the three centers would put the university system at risk of being perceived as clamping down on free speech, Ross said.
Nichol said Friday foundations and private donors have offered contributions to a new law school research fund that will allow him to hire scholars to help his work. He promised a lawsuit if the Board of Governors tries to block the creation of the fund. Nichol declined an interview request through law school spokeswoman Allison Reid.
Nichol was dean of the UNC-CH law school when he recruited Edwards to start the poverty center at his alma mater after his 2004 run as Democrat John Kerry's vice presidential candidate.
Nichol had run unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate, losing Colorado's Democratic primary in 1996. Two years later, Nichol ran for the U.S. House in Colorado but again lost the Democratic primary.
The center provided Edwards a platform to travel the country discussing poverty. A multimillionaire trial lawyer, Edwards earned $40,000 a year as the think tank's director before declaring his candidacy for president in December 2006.
Nichol is paid an extra $7,500 as the poverty center's director on top of his $211,400 salary. He also is allowed to teach two courses a year instead of the usual three to accommodate his work as the center's director, Reid said.
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Emery Dalesio can be reached at http://twitter.com/emerydalesio .
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