Column: Do not target centers for cuts

The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History celebrated 10 years at its current building in August. The establishment of the center was the result of decades of controversy, advocacy and struggle, from the creation of a 900 square-foot space that was once the Black Cultural Center in the Student Union, to Sept. 10, 1992, when students marched to South Building to demand a freestanding facility.

This past summer Gov. Pat McCrory signed the 2014-15 state budget, which spurred the Board of Governors to consider repurposing $15 million from the UNC system’s centers and institutes toward its strategic directions initiative and distinguished professorships.

But the Stone Center, American Indian Center, Carolina Women’s Center and Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity, among others, are spaces to construct historically accurate narratives of exploitation and exclusion that have been birthmarked into the founding of this University.

No degree of budget oversight is enough to justify cutbacks to these centers.

The board is reviewing the system’s 237 centers and institutes, 80 of which are at UNC-Chapel Hill, said James L. Holmes, Jr., chairman of public affairs and leader of the effort.

“We are following a process that we believe is in the best interest of the system,” he said. “This is a fact-based review that has no agenda from its outset.”

Former state budget director Art Pope presented to the board earlier in September, pointing to centers as a possible area for cuts.

The Civitas Institute, a think tank that calls itself “North Carolina’s Conservative Voice” has written about the centers and institutes as a possible source of budgetary excess. The John William Pope Foundation, an Art Pope enterprise, is the bankroller of the institute.

The institute criticized the coexistence of the Institute for African-American Research, the Sonja Hayes Stone Center for Black Culture, and the African Studies Center at UNC.

“Are these efforts duplicative? If so, are there justifiable reasons to finance multiple programs?” the institute asked in an article posted on its website.

Only in 1951 were the first black male students admitted to UNC after a hard-fought battle in federal courts.

And only in 1965 did Karen Parker become the first black female graduate of UNC.

The board aims to release results from the first phase of review by Oct. 15.

The centers are a means for our university to reckon with a destructive past — a time when people of color, women and people experiencing poverty were barred from attending.

Still, we must practice continual repentance. Some inclusion does not equal amends for the past nor does it absolve the University from historical inequities that persist to this day.

As Seth Rose wrote last week, the unacceptably small number of black men enrolled at UNC face a more difficult path to graduate than the average student. Now is not the time to undo the limited progress we have achieved.