Art Pope discusses views on education as a right

Outside Gardner Hall on Tuesday afternoon, a group of student protestors exercised the right of free speech.

And inside, N.C. Budget Director Art Pope spoke to an ethics class on the right to an education.

“This is my class and not a public forum,” she said. “We can’t learn from each other without being civil.”

To a more crowded classroom than usual, Pope laid out his view of education as a right — but not an all-encompassing right.

He said the state constitution requires higher education institutions to be available, but it does not require free admission to universities or unlimited funding from the state.

Pope stressed Article IX of the N.C. Constitution, which in Sections 8 and 9 requires the state to provide a public system of higher education.

But Section 9 only requires a university education to be available to state residents “as far as practicable.”

Pope used this mandate to argue that North Carolina does not have a duty to supply a free education to students.

He said the state is only required to provide what it can.

Douglas MacLean, a UNC philosophy professor in the Parr Center for Ethics who attended the talk, said the moral duty of how much funding is required is dependent on the interpretation of practicable.

“I think one interpretation, that (Pope) didn’t seem to want to accept, is that (practicable) might mean the state has a stronger obligation to be funding the university,” he said.

As legislators review Gov. Pat McCrory’s budget proposal — which includes a possible $55 million cut to the UNC system — university funding remains a contentious topic coupled with the effects of federal decreases in funding.

But Pope stressed that the funding debate is unfairly portrayed.

Thomas Ross said in a recent statement that the university system sustained $400 million in cuts in the previous two years.

But Pope said that these decreases are actually transitions of money to different causes in the university system.

Student Body President Christy Lambden attended the lecture and said some of Pope’s statements were inaccurate.

“Some of the facts portrayed today are troubling and misleading,” he said. “The state has cut the level of support they give to education.”

Contact the desk editor at state@dailytarheel.com.