North Carolina professor who waged 'war on DEI' at university touts win
Porter has taught applied statistics and data analysis to graduate students at NC State since 2011. The self-described "populist Republican" has been fighting against DEI policies at the university for the past decade and believes he achieved his first victory in February.
"Two weeks ago, I filed a complaint citing four violations of the UNC System's policies on institutional neutrality and the ban on compelled speech. The university has now conceded on three out of four counts—but they're saying as little as possible about it," Porter wrote on his blog.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Porter said he was surprised and thrilled when he learned the university announced it would be making changes, just two weeks after he had filed his complaint.
"I wasn't sure exactly what was going to happen. So I was really, really happy with the final outcome," he said.
The university announced on February 25 that it had made revisions to the language in its strategic plan and vision and values statements in order to align with the UNC System's equality policy.
Porter had filed a complaint to the UNC Board of Governors on February 8 alleging NC State was violating the UNC System policies on institutional neutrality and compelled speech in multiple ways, including in its strategic plan.
In 2023, the UNC Board of Governors voted to ban DEI statements and compelled speech from admission, hiring, promotion and tenure practices at 16 public universities.
UNC also repealed and replaced its diversity and inclusion policy with an "equality policy," which requires schools to "comply with nondiscrimination laws, comply with institutional neutrality, refrain from compelling others' speech, and refrain from promoting political or social concepts through training or required beliefs."
Porter said these policies "marked a significant victory for intellectual freedom in North Carolina's public universities."
Yet he says his university simply moved its DEI measures "underground" rather than actually eliminating them.
For example, DEI terms remained in NC State's strategic plan and other strategic plans in various colleges at the university, he said. The university also renamed its DEI office multiple times rather than abolish the office.
"To me, it was really insulting when they just renamed the office. It's like, really? That's how you're complying with this?" he remarked.
The university should have gotten rid of this office and hired people "who actually believe in equality of opportunity as opposed to equality of outcomes," he added.
Porter's complaint to the board cited other alleged violations, such as 4,750 references to "diversity, equity and inclusion" on administrative websites and text on the university's Pride Center website which said that students and faculty members are required to use a student's preferred pronouns. That text has since been removed from the university website.
In Porter's complaint, he asked the board to review these alleged violations and take any necessary corrective action.
Although he didn't hear anything back, he was pleasantly surprised to see the university announcement and said it appeared that the university had been "quietly scrubbing" language from some of the websites he flagged in his complaint.
"I was astonished I won on the strategic plan," he told Fox News Digital. "That was the one I really cared about. I thought, boy if anything can happen, if we can get this stuff out of the strategic plans, that is just a huge, huge victory."
When reached for comment, North Carolina State University referred Fox News Digital to the university's February statement about the changes.
The UNC Board of Governors did not respond to a request for comment.
The professor's victory comes after he lost a federal civil rights lawsuit against NC State in 2021 in which he alleged retaliation for criticizing DEI and social justice at the university.
The university announcement came just two weeks after universities in the state were ordered to drop any mandated diversity, equity and inclusion course credits, in order to comply with President Trump's anti-DEI executive order, Inside Higher Ed reported.
Porter told Fox News Digital he was pleased by the Trump administration's actions tackling DEI in education.
"I wake up every day eager to read the news," Porter said. "It's been absolutely delightful. A fantasy come true."
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