UNC removes guidelines calling golf, compliments microaggressions

The University of North Carolina has taken down its Employee Forum post labeling Christmas vacations and staff golf outings microaggressions.

[RELATED: UNC claims Christmas vacations, golf outings are microaggressions]

This action follows Campus Reform’s reporting on the list, which initially prompted UNC to password-protect the guidelines to make them accessible only to students and faculty.

Now, the link to the guidelines displays a “page not found” message.

“Last Thursday, the UNC-Chapel Hill Employee Forum posted an opinion blog on its website on the topic of microaggressions,” Joel Curran, UNC’s Vice Chancellor for Communications and Public Affairs, said in a statement Tuesday. “Those opinions were wrongly reported as University policy and/or guidelines; they are not. The blog does not represent University policy nor was it intended to be an official or unofficial guidebook as it has been widely reported in social media.”

Curran clarifies that “NC-Chapel Hill has no policy, formal or informal, about microaggressions,” explaining that “the Employee Forum has since decided to remove the post because it was misconstrued as University policy,” when it really just “reflected the opinions of some Employee Forum delegates and was intended to provide a general overview about microaggressions—not to fully examine the topic, which is nuanced and complex.”

Curran notes that the Employee Forum consists of an elected staff and that the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has given the school the top “green light” rating for dedication to preserving free speech.

“Like all UNC-Chapel Hill employees,” he asserted unambiguously, “Forum delegates have the freedom to share their views about issues important to them.”

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