Recent editorials from North Carolina newspapers:
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Sept. 7
The News & Observer of Raleigh on University of North Carolina Board of Governors criticizing school officials over the recent controversy about a Confederate memorial statue at the Chapel Hill campus:
Now 15 members of the University of North Carolina Board of Governors have criticized in a letter UNC system President Margaret Spellings, Board of Governors Chair Lou Bissette and by implication UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol Folt over the recent controversy about the Silent Sam Confederate memorial statue on the Chapel Hill campus. They’re framing their criticism as an issue of oversight, that the Board of Governors should have had to approve a letter to Gov. Roy Cooper seeking help with security because of concerns a possible confrontation between protesters and supporters of the statue might become dangerous.
The letter, which by the way was reviewed by the BOG’s committee chairs, was the right thing to do. And Cooper advised UNC leaders that they could remove the statue under a public safety exception to a ridiculous 2015 law that prevents historic monuments from being moved or altered. That law was nothing but a bow to the right-wing base of the Republican Party, which now dominates the UNC board.
The letter from these 15 was sent over email by, speaking of the Republican right wing, a BOG member, Tom Fetzer, who is a Republican lobbyist and former Raleigh mayor (and former state GOP leader). Fetzer and four other signers of the letter apparently believe they’ve learned quickly how to run the university system; they just joined the politically appointed board in July.
The notion that UNC leaders should have run this request to the governor past the entire BOG is preposterous. Safety was a concern before the Aug. 22 protest and they needed guidance.
What’s really going on here, of course, is that it’s amateur hour on the Board of Governors. Hard partisan Republicans are in charge, and their main concern is putting their brand on the UNC system and continuing to stick it to Democrats as if they were in the General Assembly, which some of them were. And Cooper is a Democrat, which is all they see. Not that he was a state senator or attorney general. Just that he is a Democrat.
If Fetzer and other Republicans want to position themselves as champions of Silent Sam, then why don’t they have the courage to say so, instead of sending a letter such as this an attempt to scold and intimidate UNC leaders? They’re always looking, of course, for a chance to attack the university’s liberal faculty and its traditions, and in Spellings they have a relatively new president unschooled in North Carolina politics and without the clout of some previous UNC presidents such as William Friday, C.D. Spangler and Erskine Bowles.
And though Spellings, a former U.S. Secretary of Education under President George W. Bush, has some conservative bona fides, some board members apparently aren’t satisfied with her reasoned, even-handed approach to her job and are looking for a reason to attack her.
In championing, or appearing to champion, a Confederate monument they’ve picked the wrong cause at the wrong time. Before and after the tragedy in Charlottesville, advocates of these monuments, which sprang up all over the South in the Jim Crow and white supremacist eras, have been on the losing end of the debate.
What these BOG members are doing is attempting to intimidate all UNC system chancellors along with Spellings and other leaders. For the sake of the university system, constituents of these institutions must hope they fail.
Online: https://www.newsobserver.com/
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Sept. 15
News & Record of Greensboro on U.S. News & World Report’s ratings of North Carolina universities:
The college “rankings” came out this week, and three North Carolina schools earned places in the Top 30.
This was not the football poll. Duke, Wake Forest and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill may not make that listing this fall. It was more important.
The U.S. News & World Report ratings count for a lot in the world of higher education - although they always trigger debates about whether they should. Nevertheless, Duke can boast about its ninth-place position among national universities. Wake Forest is No. 27, and UNC-CH is 30th. They’re notable institutions, with excellent schools of business, law, medicine and other academic disciplines.
That’s not to overlook other outstanding North Carolina colleges and universities, which are ranked in other categories. Davidson, for example, places 10th among National Liberal Arts Colleges.
What distinguishes one college or university from another? Money is a big part of the equation. Private schools dominate the top of the rankings. They have large endowments, pay high salaries for accomplished faculty members and charge tuition and fees around $50,000 a year. In every way, they are elite institutions.
The first public, or state, institutions among national universities are the University of California-Berkeley and the University of California-Los Angeles, tied for 21st. Then come the University of Virginia at 25, the University of Michigan at 28 and UNC-CH at 30. All charge residents of their states considerably less to attend, thanks to taxpayer subsidies.
Public universities are supposed to serve the people of their state. North Carolina’s constitution says the benefits of higher education should be provided free of cost, to the extent “practicable.” What that term means can be debated endlessly.
It’s apparent from a new report, however, that none of the nation’s Top 30 universities, public or private, serves an economically representative student body.
The Equality of Opportunity Project, which studies access and affordability issues, looked at how many students come from families with incomes in the top 1 percent and how many come from families with incomes in the lowest 60 percent. Duke and Wake Forest both enroll more students from the former category - about 20 percent - than from the latter, according to data covering the years 2000 to 2011.
UNC-CH’s enrollment was about 5 percent “1-percenters” and only about 20 percent from the bottom 60 percent. Its balance is significantly out of whack, but less so than what’s seen at elite private institutions.
Two Triad private universities, Elon and High Point, saw enrollment of the 1 percent increase and the 60 percent drop during that same period. In 2006, more than 40 percent of High Point students came from bottom-60 percent families; by 2011 that had fallen to less than 15 percent.
Researchers note that affluent students are more likely to help universities climb in the rankings because wealth is strongly associated with academic achievement. And, because they require less financial aid to attend, these students are good for a college’s bottom line. While Elon and High Point are moving in the direction of schools like Duke and Wake Forest, they do not yet attract as many students from the wealthiest families. But they have incentives to do so.
Greensboro, of course, is a college town - and its institutions are more likely to reflect the general population. N.C. A&T, UNC-Greensboro and Bennett, Guilford and Greensboro colleges don’t attract many students from the 1 percent and enroll plenty of students from the lower 60 percent. It appears they generally serve the middle class, providing at least the chance for students to rise above modest circumstances. That’s what higher education should do - whether it’s recognized on college rankings or not. The elite universities, for all their undeniable contributions to our nation, also help maintain the upper class.
Online: https://www.greensboro.com/
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Sept. 10
The Fayetteville Observer on pollution in the Cape Fear River:
Bad news about the Cape Fear River is coming in buckets and barrels this year, all of them filled with anything but clean, clear water.
There is, of course, all the bad news about GenX, the chemical used by DuPont spinoff Chemours in its Fayetteville Works, where it manufactures plastic films like Teflon. The stuff was developed to substitute for another Teflon ingredient, called C8, a few years ago because C8 had leaked from a West Virginia DuPont/Chemours plant, shown up in public water supplies and provoked a host of lawsuits that cost DuPont and Chemours a $670 million settlement. C8 likely causes a number of illnesses, including testicular and kidney cancer.
So now GenX has been found to cause testicular, pancreatic and kidney cancer in animals, but research into its effects on humans is only in early stages. GenX has been found in significant quantities in the Cape Fear River below the Chemours plant, which straddles the Cumberland/Bladen County line. It’s also showing up in the public water system that serves Wilmington and surrounding municipalities. Wilmington residents, and their elected representatives, are angry and demanding state action - which they’re getting. State regulators have already begun steps to revoke Chemours’ permit to discharge waste into the Cape Fear. Last week, GenX was also found in ground water around the chemical plant.
The state is also investigating other compounds found in the river that are related to GenX and may have come from Chemours as well. None of the chemicals have been thoroughly examined for their health effects.
Then there is the older, longer-known pollution that spans much of the Cape Fear basin, which is the largest in the state. That’s the chemical 1,4-dioxane, widely used in the manufacture of varnishes, paint thinners and other products. The state has known about the discharge for several years and has tried unsuccessfully to track the source, but it appears to be coming from the Cape Fear’s principal source, the Haw River, from somewhere around Greensboro. 1,4-dioxane is a likely human carcinogen.
The nonprofit Environmental Work Group said last week that the Cape Fear basin is one of the most highly polluted by 1,4-dioxane in the country. In the group’s report, high levels of the chemical were found in the Sanford, Harnett County, Fort Bragg and Dunn water systems. All were at least eight times the Environmental Protection Agency’s “negligible” level.
The Fayetteville Public Works Commission, which provides water to the city and other parts of Cumberland County, says concentrations of the chemical in the river and in Fayetteville’s water have been dropping. That’s good news, but we shouldn’t be cheered by it. It’s still there and it’s still in measurable, and possibly dangerous, concentrations.
But wait, there’s more. Earlier this year, the nonprofit American Rivers listed the Cape Fear as one of the 10 most-endangered rivers in the country. The reason: runoff from factory farming operations. That’s no surprise, given our legislature’s efforts to cut back, instead of increasing, the amount of buffer required between agricultural operations and our state’s waterways. As if our rivers weren’t already dirty enough.
All of this exposes a state whose lawmakers and regulators have long shrugged off all but the most blatant dumping of chemicals and wastes into our rivers. Much of the state’s drinking water comes from those rivers, but somehow it’s OK to use them as open sewers as well. If it’s just sewage, our water treatment plants are capable of removing most of the pollution. But when it’s chemicals - C8, GenX or 1,4-dioxane among others - there is no such capability. For all practical purposes, it’s just about impossible to filter those chemicals from our drinking water. We’re at the mercy of the waste dumpers and until just this summer, regulators and lawmakers haven’t done much more than close their eyes.
We don’t want the Cape Fear River to carry poisons into our municipal water supplies. We assume no one does. A good, loud public outcry can make a difference.
Online: https://www.fayobserver.com/
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