Former Kenan-Flagler Professor Who Was Secretly Recorded Sues UNC

Larry Chavis, a former clinical professor of economics at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the university following notice that his one-year contract would not be renewed. Chavis had taught at Kenan-Flagler for 18 years.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday (September 26) in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, names both University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina Board of Governors as defendants. It alleges retaliation for Chavis’ outspoken views on faculty diversity and other issues and asserts violations of his First Amendment rights.

This spring, Chavis went public about a series of secret recordings of at least four of his undergraduate business school classes, granting interviews to Poets&Quants and several other local and national media outlets. Chavis contends the recordings ran afoul of Kenan-Flagler’s own IT policy.

On June 10, he received a letter from Kenan-Flagler Business School dean Mary Margaret Frank notifying him that his yearly contract would not be renewed.

“There was no reason given,” Chavis told P&Q at the time. “The technical thing is that they have not renewed my contract. But, I think, the layman’s understanding of that is that I was fired.”

WHAT THE LAWSUIT ALLEGES

Chavis, a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, has been an outspoken critic of Kenan-Flagler and the university on topics like race, gender, LBGTQ+ issues, and pay disparities for several years. He has publicly called for more faculty diversity at Kenan-Flagler, telling the school newspaper in 2022 that the B-school was “the worst of the worst” when it came to diversity and inclusion. He was previously chastised for telling students that wearing clothing from sports teams with Native American names or logos would violate the school’s honor code because it is disrespectful to indigenous students, comments which he later amended.

According to his complaint, Chavis was repeatedly passed over for leadership roles at the business school in favor of less qualified candidates. He further alleges that his critiques of discriminatory practices, including unequal pay among faculty members of different races, contributed to the university’s decision to terminate his employment.

The lawsuit also alleges that UNC’s recording of Chavis’ classroom lectures without his consent violated both university policy and North Carolina law. North Carolina is a one-party consent state meaning that at least one party of a conversation must consent to its recording. It’s unclear how that would pertain to a lecture at a public university, but one could interpret that to mean the parties to the “conversation” are the professor and anyone in the classroom, including students. But, if Kenan-Flagler administrators turned on a recording device remotely, without knowledge of the professors or the students, then no parties gave consent.

“In addition to Chavis failing to provide consent, there is no evidence that any student consented or would have had legal authority to do so on behalf of other students,” the lawsuit reads.

Chavis asserts that the recordings were part of a broader effort to target and intimidate him following his public criticisms of the university’s lack of diversity and inclusion efforts.

As for tangible damages, Chavis is seeking back pay, front pay, and lost benefits as well as attorney fees in his lawsuit. He is also asking for a permanent injunction to prevent UNC from continuing the alleged unlawful practices that led to his termination.

Less tangibly, Chavis told P&Q this morning: “It’s certainly not about winning a case. It’s kind of a cliche – but I can see why the cliche exists now – but it’s about justice being served however a jury would see fit.”

Chavis grew up in North Carolina, in a trailer in one of the country’s poorest counties. He would have gone to UNC had his scholarship interview gone better, he says. Instead, he attended Duke University for undergrad, but he still has the same UNC ID number he got as a high school intern helping to teach minority students how to get involved in medical research. His first UNC office overlooked the Dean Smith Center, named for the legendary UNC basketball coach.

“That was a really cool thing for me. Statistically, I shouldn’t have been in that position (a professor at a prestigious business school). That was a kind of fairy tale, and I’d rather the story not end like this.”

Chavis has requested a jury trial for his case, and is represented by Artur Davis and Sunny Panyanouvong-Rubeck of HKM Employment Attorneys.

UNC has not yet publicly commented on the lawsuit. You can read the full complaint in Chavis’ Linkedin post embedded above.

SECRET RECORDINGS AND TERMINATION

Chavis’ latest saga began after he received an email on April 22 from Kenan-Flagler senior associate dean Christian Lundblad. The email outlined that the school secretly recorded four of Chavis’ classrooms using the classroom’s camera in response to student “reports concerning class content and conduct within (Chavis’) class over the last few months.”

“Notice is not required to record classes, and we do record classes without notice in response to concerns raised by students,” the letter states.

Chavis went public with concerns regarding Kenan-Flagler’s conduct. His story was covered on CNN, Inside Higher Ed, and the Daily Tar Heel, among other outlets.

On May 20, Chavis was given a four-page confidential copy of the review of his undergraduate International Development class, the one that was secretly recorded the month before. The evaluation included information gleaned from “a thorough examination of the course syllabi, student reports to the UBP, an examination of recent student written evaluations, and two in-person class observations,” according to the evaluation. The four recorded classes were not considered, the report says.

The evaluation refers to a “misalignment” between the course description and content, including complaints from students that Chavis too often talked about his own life experiences and how he’d been wronged by colleagues and the business school itself, deviating from course content. Some students reported feeling “physically unsafe in the clas as Prof Chavis stated he was going to ‘burn this b*tch down,’” the report reads.

Chavis sent a point-by-point response to the evaluation on the same day, which he also posted to his Linkedin page. He says he never heard back from school administrators. He notes that he believes the evaluation cherry-picks the worst of the student evaluations while ignoring the positive comments. He also maintains that the ‘bun this b*tch down’ comment was taken out of context.

On June 10, Kenan-Flagler’s dean Frank notified him that his contract would not be renewed, but that he would receive a six-month severance.

“In accordance with Section 2.b.5. of the Trustee Policies and Regulations Governing Academic Tenure in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, no obligation exists on the part of the University to provide any notice in advance of the expiration of an appointment for a specified term of service. Although we are not required to provide you with advance notice of the end of your appointment, you will be provided pay equal to six months’ pay in your final paycheck in June,” the letter reads. “We do appreciate your contributions to the Kenan-Flagler Business School and wish you success in your future endeavors.”

A ‘LONGER ARC OF HISTORY’

Chavis has been looking for work since he learned his contract would not be renewed. But at 54, academic posts that fit his background, experience, and research interests seem few and far between, he says. He is considering non-academic positions as well, and realizes that he may have to leave North Carolina.

Chavis is limited to what he can talk about in regards to the lawsuit, but he did reflect on what he thinks it means other than collecting back pay and lawyers fees.

This lawsuit is the culmination of a journey shaped by his upbringing in North Carolina and the challenges his family faced under Jim Crow laws, he says. His father, a Native American man, lived through tri-racial segregation with separate restrooms for White, Black, and Native Americans. He could not have imagined some of the opportunities Chavis would eventually attain – like attending Stanford University or becoming a UNC professor.

“In many ways, particularly for my dad, they didn’t have the same set of opportunities. I think my dad feels as much pain about this situation as anybody, even more than me in some ways. He sees a longer arc of history.”

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