TO THE EDITOR:
Chancellor Folt, where is your voice?
Your peers at Duke, the dean of the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, the dean of the Gillings School of Public Health and 50 other Chapel Hill faculty have spoken out against House Bill 2.
Across the country, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, state governors and important thinkers are standing in solidarity. In your email to the UNC community on March 31, you address that “many in our community, particularly those identifying as LGBTQ, are experiencing a great deal of uncertainty, hurt, anger and fear.”
You acknowledge that we are hurting, yet refuse to stand up and cast a spotlight on the source of the pain?
The message tells a marginalized community to wait. It reiterates UNC’s commitment to “ensuring that everyone is treated with dignity and respect and that no one fears for their safety.”
In avoiding real criticism of the real discrimination that has been written into law, the message that I receive is that UNC is paralyzed with fear of the political repercussions that might follow publicly disagreeing with a law coming out of the N.C. General Assembly. During your time at Dartmouth, I am sure that you became familiar with the school’s motto: a voice crying out in the wilderness.
You are in the wilderness of the South now. You are at the helm of an historic institution whose motto reads “light and liberty.” Where is your voice crying out in the wilderness, carrying the message of light and liberty? Your community would love to hear from you.
Max Levin
