Trump administration settles UNC civil-rights probes without payment
UNC-Chapel Hill will adopt new antisemitism, admissions and reporting rules through 2028 while retaining federal-funding eligibility and admitting no wrongdoing.
The Trump administration has reached a voluntary civil-rights settlement with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that closes 18 active Education Department investigations and a separate Justice Department review while allowing the university to remain eligible for federal funding.
The agreement, announced Monday, October 19, imposes new rules on antisemitism complaints, admissions, scholarships and campus protests through December 31, 2028. It requires no financial payment, and UNC did not admit wrongdoing or liability, according to the agreement and Reuters.
What UNC agreed to change
UNC must create a Title VI coordinator role and designate a Merit and Civil Rights Administrator to oversee compliance. The university said associate vice chancellor Elizabeth Hall would fill both roles and serve as the federal government’s point of contact, Reuters reported.
The university must maintain policies that prohibit unlawful antisemitic discrimination, explicitly cover Jewish and Israeli students under its nondiscrimination policy, investigate complaints promptly and provide mandatory antisemitism training to students, faculty and staff. It must send quarterly reports about antisemitism and race-discrimination complaints to the Justice and Education departments.
The agreement also calls for added law-enforcement resources when events or other conditions warrant them, discipline for student groups found responsible for discriminatory conduct, and a prohibition on face coverings that conceal a person’s identity during protests. Those provisions address campus protest management as well as Title VI compliance.
Admissions and university programs
On admissions, UNC agreed not to use race, racial proxies or racial data to change the composition of its student body. It also may not disfavor applicants who decline to identify their race or choose admissions staff based on race. Partnerships with bridge or pipeline programs may not use race, color or national origin as a selection criterion.
The settlement permits UNC to consider an applicant’s individual experience of adversity and consistently applied factors such as poverty or family background. It separately requires race-neutral rules for scholarships, financial aid, student benefits and programming.
Those provisions follow the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and UNC. The administration describes the settlement as enforcement of Title VI, the federal law that bars discrimination based on race, color or national origin in federally funded programs.
Claims, response and wider context
Justice Department officials said the agreement addresses what they characterized as antisemitism and race discrimination at UNC. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon praised the university for cooperating without litigation, while Education Department civil-rights chief Kimberly Richey said applicants should be assessed on merit and Jewish students should be protected from discrimination.
Those statements are the administration’s account of the resolved investigations, not a judicial finding. UNC’s lack of an admission is significant: the agreement sets prospective compliance duties but does not establish liability or require damages.
Reuters placed the deal within the administration’s broader pressure campaign involving universities, federal funding and campus policies. Critics have raised free-speech, due-process and academic-freedom concerns, and pro-Palestinian advocates, including Jewish groups, dispute claims that opposition to Israeli government policy is inherently antisemitic. The settlement itself focuses on conduct covered by federal nondiscrimination law.
Unlike earlier agreements that included large payments, this deal has no monetary component. Columbia University agreed in 2025 to pay more than $200 million to resolve federal investigations, while Brown University committed $50 million to local workforce development, Reuters reported. UNC instead accepted monitoring and policy obligations lasting a little more than two years.
The immediate result is that federal officials will close the 18 Education Department matters and the Justice Department’s compliance review, which began on April 18, 2025. UNC keeps access to federal funds, but its implementation and quarterly reporting will remain subject to federal oversight until the agreement expires.
Sources and image credit
Primary documents: Justice Department announcement and the UNC settlement agreement. Independent reporting: Reuters, available in a Straits Times reprint.
Image: McCorkle Place at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, photographed by Mx. Granger on March 30, 2020. Sourced from Wikimedia Commons and released under the CC0 1.0 public-domain dedication. Center-cropped and resized to 1600×900; no text added.