The UNC Board of Governors updated its policy manual Dec. 19, 2025, to adopt a new regulation stating that all syllabuses, course calendars and grading scales must be public records. This would allow any person access to a professor’s syllabus, which typically outlines the different coursework, class schedule and requirements for their class.
The policy has received backlash not only from professors but union organizations like the American Association of University Professors. One argument against the policy comes from the growing conversation on how much intellectual property professors have the right to.
“It’s not just the breach of potential privacy, but also this overall concern of what is a professor’s or faculty member’s intellectual property,” said Danyelle Kara, the vice president of the App State chapter of the AAUP and a professor of social work.
The policy’s timing and enactment go in tandem with the nationwide rise of censorship within higher education. In 2025, there were over 70 different bills and policies introduced throughout 26 states, each aiming to limit what teachers in higher education can teach. Alongside this, the removal of DEI programs and facilities leads to restrictions within the college atmosphere.
“With our current administration, and I would even say at the state level and our board of governors, there is this attack on higher education,” Kara said.
The change in policy came from a highly-debated proposal made by the UNC system on Dec. 5 and went into effect Jan. 15. It will officially be instated in the coming academic year of 2026-27 and onward.
“There’s this generalized feeling from faculty who are involved with AAUP, including myself, of bad faith actors using that information to try to further censor faculty,” Kara said.
According to App State’s public records request policy, a public record includes all forms of media “made or received pursuant to law or ordinance in connection with the transaction of public business by the University.” A request can be made through University Communications by anyone, regardless of affiliation with App State.
“If people have a genuine curiosity about what’s going on in the classroom, I wouldn’t have a problem with people accessing syllabi. However, this is very clearly politically motivated,” said Mark Powell, a creative writing professor at App State. “Professors are hired and expected to be experts in their subject area, and we sort of have to operate under the assumption that they know what they’re doing and that they are teaching in good faith. This clearly is meant to undermine that authority and question it on ideological grounds.”
According to the initial draft made by the UNC board, the policy was made as a way to help students organize themselves in regard to their courseload and classwork. It also provides transparency of expectations from professors to students.
The coinciding concern with this transparency is the fear of backlash from people outside of campuses toward professors who teach sensitive content. On July 2, 2025, the conservative organization, Oversight Project, requested over 70 different syllabuses from schools across the UNC board, targeting courses that contain “DEI” material.
“It makes me fearful for my colleagues, and it makes me concerned about other professors and how straightforward you can operate in the classroom with the sense that someone is always looking over your shoulder,” Powell said. “If I was a newer non-tenure-track faculty, it would be hard not to be fearful for the repercussions of someone seeking out and then misconstruing.”
Overall, the policy, according to the UNC board, sets out to provide a transparent resource to students, but according to some professors, it is a method of control and censorship.
“Our job is to try to make North Carolina a better place to live, try to improve the lives of young people, try to give them more opportunities,” Powell said. “If we aren’t trusted to do that, that bespeaks a serious problem.”
