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Some faculty say policy could lead to online targeting, but others say transparency is needed
Starting next week, the University of North Carolina System will begin requiring all course syllabi to be made publicly available, joining a growing number of states pushing for greater transparency at taxpayer-funded universities.
However, the new policy has received pushback from a number of faculty, who argue the change could open them up to “bad-faith critique and extremist threats.”
“Public university syllabi should be public records, and that will be the official policy of the UNC System,” its President Peter Hans wrote in a recent op-ed for the News & Observer.
The policy, which was approved Dec. 19, will go into effect Jan. 15. It comes amid declining public confidence in higher education, which Hans attributed to concerns that universities have “drifted from their core mission.”
Hans said adopting a uniform policy across all UNC campuses will prevent inconsistent rules and reinforce institutional accountability.
“Having a consistent rule on syllabi transparency, instead of 16 campuses coming up with different rules, helps ensure that everyone is on the same page and similarly committed heading into each new semester,” he wrote.
The College Fix reached out to the UNC System media relations office for comment on the policy, but received no response.
Agreeing with the change, Cato Institute research fellow Andrew Gillen told The Fix that public access to syllabi is reasonable given the level of taxpayer funding universities receive. Cato is a libertarian thinktank dedicated to individual liberty, limited government, and free markets.
“Lots of universities receive public funding, and when that is the case, public access to syllabi is largely unobjectionable,” Gillen said. “Public universities, which tend to receive large subsidies from state governments, have little leg to stand on about making syllabi publicly available.”
Gillen also told The Fix that transparency is crucial as academic accountability declines and students increasingly question whether college is a worthwhile investment.
“There are lots of predictably bad college ‘investments’ that have left wave after wave of students worse off, whether because they acquired significant student loan debt without graduating, or because even if they graduate, their degree has little value,” he said.
In his op-ed, UNC President Hans acknowledged that public syllabi will invite criticism and debate, but wrote that transparency is the appropriate response to increased scrutiny. He also pledged to protect faculty from threats while criticizing “conflict entrepreneurs” for amplifying isolated syllabus excerpts into viral outrage.
“For public universities like ours, I’m convinced that more transparency is the right response,” Hans wrote.
However, over 2,900 faculty and staff signed a petition opposing the new policy as of Tuesday afternoon.
“The UNC System is preparing to cave to political pressure from the Heritage Foundation, the Oversight Project, and the James Martin Center by further opening our public universities and colleges to bad-faith critique and extremist threats,” the petition reads.
The petition also calls the policy “unnecessary,” “burdensome,” and “politically motivated,” warning it could lead to public misunderstandings and targeted backlash.
Zach Greenberg, director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s Faculty Legal Defense Fund, told The Fix that the faculty’s “concerns are justified.” FIRE is a campus legal and free speech organization.
“There’s situations where, because syllabi are publicly disclosed, faculty members face threats to their well-being and to their job,” Greenberg said. He urged the system to ensure faculty are not disciplined or fired over syllabus content.
The debate about making syllabi public intensified earlier this year after the Oversight Project, affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, submitted a public records request to UNC Chapel Hill seeking syllabi and course materials for more than 70 classes, according to Inside Higher Ed.
The request targeted courses referencing terms such as “DEI,” “gender identity,” “white privilege,” and “racial equity.”
“Disclosure of these records will contribute significantly to the public’s understanding of university operations and student-facing programming,” Oversight Project President Mike Howell said at the time.
The Fix contacted the Heritage Foundation regarding the public records requests, but did not receive a reply.
Previously, UNC campuses set their own rules for handling course syllabi. Some, including North Carolina State University, have treated them as faculty-owned intellectual property exempt from public records requests, according to NC Newsline.
Under the new policy, all syllabi across the system must be uploaded to a single, publicly searchable database.
UNC System spokesperson Andy Wallace told NC Newsline in December that administrators “worked to seek input from elected faculty representatives” and were considering their feedback before finalizing the policy.
“A common standard would clarify that syllabi are part of faculty’s teaching duties as public employees and should be available for tuition-paying students and taxpayers to see,” he said.
The UNC System is joining states like Florida, Texas, and Georgia, where public universities have recently implemented similar syllabus transparency policies.
MORE: Florida universities will be required to post syllabi publicly this spring
