The Justice and Education departments have settled their civil rights investigations of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with an agreement that commits the university to color-blind admissions and a set of new antisemitism safeguards through the end of 2028. Because of UNC's cooperation, the Justice Department said, the university will remain eligible for federal funding.
The voluntary settlement, announced Monday by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, applies to every school and program at UNC and resolves investigations brought under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Education Department will close 18 active investigations into the university, and the Civil Rights Division will close a compliance review of UNC's admissions practices that it opened on April 18, 2025. UNC said the matters dated back to 2019, spanned the Biden and Trump administrations and included allegations of discrimination based on race, sex and ethnicity, as well as antisemitic harassment.
"Higher ed policies and practices that tolerate antisemitism or favor certain racial groups over others, frustrate our color-blind justice system," said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division. She commended UNC for meeting its obligations under federal law without the need for litigation and said she hoped other institutions would take note. Assistant Secretary Kimberly Richey of the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights called the agreement "an important step in upholding civil rights laws and restoring the American people's confidence in higher education."
On admissions, UNC must adopt and maintain a color-blind system, which the department said means it may not use race, analyze racial data, alter its process to change the racial composition of its student body or disfavor applicants who decline to identify their race. It may not use race in selecting admissions personnel or partner with "bridge" or "pipeline" programs that consider any protected characteristic. Citing the Supreme Court's 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the department said UNC must also keep scholarships, financial aid, student benefits and programming race-blind, and scholarship criteria may not include diversity or identification with a protected characteristic.
The Daily Tar Heel reported that the settlement will not fundamentally change UNC's admissions practices, which already prohibit racial preferences and the use of racial proxies, although it specifically bars favoring international applicants over U.S. citizens. The university's summary of the deal says applicants' experiences overcoming adversity or socioeconomic disadvantage may still be considered when they are not used to provide unlawful preferences, and that the agreement requires UNC to consider standardized test scores when applicants submit them.
The antisemitism terms require UNC to establish a Title VI coordinator position, make sure its nondiscrimination policy covers Jewish and Israeli students, and promptly assess and investigate complaints. All students, faculty and staff must take antisemitism training. The university must deploy additional law enforcement resources when events or other factors warrant to protect Jewish and Israeli students, and it will discipline and sanction student groups for antisemitic discriminatory conduct. The agreement also prohibits face masks that conceal a person's identity, a rule UNC said carries exceptions, including for legitimate medical and religious needs, consistent with North Carolina law and UNC System policy.
The training is new: the student newspaper reported that antisemitism training did not previously exist at UNC. Chancellor Lee H. Roberts told the paper that, to his knowledge, none of the perpetrators of recent hate-based incidents on campus are currently affiliated with the university. "My point is just that no amount of training is going to eliminate actions by people outside our community. Hopefully, it helps us respond more effectively," he said.
The agreement gives UNC 30 days to select a Merit & Civil Rights Administrator to carry it out. The university has assigned that role, along with the Title VI coordinator job, to Elizabeth Hall, its associate vice chancellor for university compliance, who will report directly to Roberts and serve as the Justice Department's point of contact. Each quarter, UNC must forward the antisemitism and race discrimination complaints it receives to both federal offices, and Roberts must certify the university's compliance. The agreement remains in effect until Dec. 31, 2028.
The two sides describe the outcome in different terms. The Justice Department's release presents the settlement as ending antisemitism and race discrimination at UNC. The university says the agreement closes the investigations without adverse action or adverse finding, that it admits no wrongdoing or liability and expressly denies liability, and that it is not required to make any monetary settlement payment. Neither announcement describes findings in any of the individual investigations. UNC says much of the required work was already underway, pointing to annual certifications it has filed with the UNC System Office since 2024 under the system's Equality Policy, which replaced the system's diversity and inclusion policy in May 2024.
Some investigations are paused rather than closed. Other investigations covered by the agreement will be held in abeyance during its term and will close without adverse action or adverse finding after UNC completes its obligations. Paul Newton, the university's vice chancellor and general counsel, told The Daily Tar Heel that this covers pending investigations UNC may not know about and any that arise before the agreement expires.
UNC also said the agreement expressly affirms protections for academic freedom and makes clear that the federal government will not dictate the content of academic speech or curricula. "This announcement reinforces our commitment to the fair and equal treatment of everyone at Carolina," Roberts said in the university's statement. "We're proud to resolve those issues at Carolina in a way that protects our mission and affirms the civil rights of everyone in our community."
According to the student paper, the deal was finalized after about a year of negotiations, and UNC approached the federal government about a resolution after seeing threats to research funding across the country. The paper reported that the agreement mirrors one the University of Virginia reached with the Justice Department in October 2025, which also required no admission of wrongdoing, called for quarterly reports and ends on Dec. 31, 2028. UNC said the settlement is separate from the Education Department's National Call to Action to university presidents and governing boards, which the UNC System answered on behalf of its campuses in August.
"We remain fully committed to upholding our responsibilities under federal civil rights law," Roberts told the paper. "If we weren't, then I don't think the Justice Department would have agreed to this resolution."