UNC Poverty Center’s Inappropriate, Possibly Illegal, Political Activities Revealed
A public records request filed by a state conservative organization confirms that the University of North Carolina’s Poverty Center is using publicly funded resources for inappropriate (and possibly illegal) political activities (hat-tip, Instapundit).
The Civitas Institute reports:
Email records show that the center – formally the UNC Center for Poverty, Work, & Opportunity – hosted an invitation-only conference in November 2013 of top liberal activists and organizers. Details on the conference come from 1,180 pages of email correspondence grudgingly provided by the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. We requested six weeks’ worth of email correspondence by Poverty Center Director Gene Nichol in October 2013. Our request was met by foot-dragging and a firestorm of political outrage from the UNC law school and its allies. A group of liberal professors led by Duke professor Nancy McLean (see inset below) compared us to Nazis, newspapers across the state accused Civitas of intimidation, and the university did everything possible to stonewall our request. At the time, we were mystified by the sudden liberal opposition to transparent government. But after reviewing the results of our request, it now seems clear why there was so much pushback from Gene Nichol and his friends: They had something to hide.
In September of 2013, UNC faculty at the Poverty Center began planning a conference that would ultimately be titled “Poverty, Partnerships, and the Public Good.” From the start, the event was highly partisan in nature. In the first draft of the event description, UNC School of Law professor Joe Polich wrote: “Poor people … face a legislature that is making sure the resources they depend on to help make ends meet are drying up.” This language was toned down in later revisions. The final “Save the Date” email, sent September 19, read:
On November 25th, the UNC Poverty Center and the Program on Public Life will convene a set of intimate discussions to explore obligations, strategies, and opportunities for various North Carolina advocates, service providers, institutions, programs, universities and funders – private and public – to address the challenges presently faced by poor and low income North Carolinians.
At Nichol’s direction, the Poverty Center began soliciting participants and invitees for the conference. Dan Gerlach of the Golden LEAF Foundation expressed concern about the political tone of the invitation: “I would be cautious about attending given my Board makeup if this turns into a political fight against the current regime.” In his response, Nichol reassured Gerlach that there would be no such “political fight.” But in correspondence with Tim Tyson, a Duke professor, Nichol’s tone changed sharply. Tyson wrote that he would “come holler at the panel … [and] tell folks … [to] run McCrony[sic]-Pope over with the Steamroller of Love.” Nichol responded: “[T]hanks my brother. I do want you to yell a little bit. Or maybe a lot.”
Comments
Why the heck does a univ have a “poverty center”? What a crock! Unless the univ has a track record for getting people OFF the dole or OUT of poverty, it has no business doing anything else. So what is really going on? It is a jobs training for social and behavioral majors to gain jobs under the misguided notion that they will be “helping” the poor, when the reality is that they NEED the poor to be poor, remain poor and create more poor so that those with useless degrees can stay employed at the expense of the poor. Taxpayer money to fund this garbage needs to stop.