WCU official describes secret ‘strategy’ to skirt DEI ban in undercover video
An undercover video filmed at Western Carolina University this year raises questions over the school's compliance with guidance from the UNC Board of Governors.
WCU photo
A senior administrator at Western Carolina University was secretly recorded describing how the school is continuing to promote diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives despite a systemwide ban enacted by the University of North Carolina Board of Governors last year.
The undercover footage was released June 10 by Accuracy in Media, founded in 1969 by conservative economist and media watchdog Reed Irvine. The recording captures Karen Price, WCU’s then-director of institutional assessment, explaining how DEI efforts remain entrenched in the university’s operations.
“We’re trying to embed that kind of diversity, equity, inclusiveness — inclusive excellence — really across like every area should have responsibility for that. It shouldn’t just be like an office or a figurehead,” Price says in the video, which AIM claims was filmed on campus by one of its operatives earlier this year. “So the work is still occurring very much here at Western, you just might see it called different things.”
“And if you embed it, it can’t be legislated out,” AIM’s operative posited to Price.
“There you go. Now you’re understanding the strategy behind what it is,” Price replied.
The UNC Board of Governors, which oversees all 17 public universities in North Carolina, voted last May to eliminate DEI offices and related expenditures. The move followed a national wave of legislative and executive actions aimed at restricting DEI programs in public education.
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In the video, Price is heard detailing how WCU has adapted to the new political climate by decentralizing DEI responsibilities, repurposing roles and dispersing funding more broadly throughout the university's structure — without formally violating the rules.
The implication, according to AIM, is that WCU is actively working to circumvent state policy by hiding DEI work in plain sight.
Two weeks later, according to AIM, WCU posted a job opening for Price’s position. Her name no longer appears in the university’s staff directory.
While supporters of the ban argue that public universities should remain politically neutral and fiscally accountable, critics say the campaign against DEI is politically motivated and ultimately counterproductive to efforts aimed at fostering inclusive environments for students and faculty.
Price, speaking candidly in the video, seems to acknowledge that political pressures have forced institutions like WCU to adopt more subtle methods of achieving the same goals.
“We are still absolutely doing all of that work,” Price said in the video. “One of the functions of how do we do that in the spirit of legislation in the current political climate is to not have one person as a chief diversity officer, but have those initiatives spread [out] more … so that position really ends up repurposed through other positions so we can do the work but stay within the context of the requirements politically to not create issues.”
Price also referenced other institutions in the UNC system that suffered job losses after the Board’s DEI directive, suggesting that WCU avoided a similar fate by being “more strategic” in its restructuring.
Although AIM’s video presents this approach as deceptive and lawless, Price appears to frame it as a pragmatic effort to protect core values under threat.
AIM has launched an action campaign through its affiliated site, savencschools.com, encouraging North Carolinians to contact the UNC Board of Governors and demand disciplinary action against WCU.
The video marks the latest in a series of AIM’s undercover stings targeting what it describes as ideological indoctrination in public education and comes after a similar video of an incident at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, released by AIM a few weeks ago, in which an administrator states that although the school no longer has a DEI officer, “if you are interested in doing work that is covert, there are opportunities.” The administrator no longer works for UNCC.
Adam Guillette, president of AIM since 2019 and a longtime critic of DEI programs, has said these investigations are necessary to expose what he calls “radicals” operating with impunity in taxpayer-funded institutions.
“First off, hidden camera investigative journalism is by far the most honest form of journalism,” Guillette told The Smoky Mountain News June 11. “When the New York Times quotes an anonymous source quoting another anonymous source, we don't know if these people said the things that they supposedly have said. We don't even know if they exist. Similarly, when reporters quote people, we don't know exactly what the what the reporter was told. We don't know the context that it was told in, whereas hidden camera investigative journalism shows people in their own words, discussing exactly what's going on.”
Guillette believes that if he’d simply asked WCU if they were violating the Board’s direction on DEI initiatives, they wouldn’t have admitted it.
“As always, when you capture these people breaking the rules, ignoring the laws, doing whatever they want to advance their agenda, they don’t know what to say because they’ve never been held accountable before.” Guillette said in the video.
Chancellor Kelli Brown, through a spokesperson, refused multiple requests for an interview with The Smoky Mountain News. Brown's office did issue a statement, but it didn’t answer any of the questions SMN intended on asking.
Additionally, pair of June 3 emails that were sent by administrators to various WCU employees but leaked to The Smoky Mountain News warns employees against speaking to outsiders about DEI in light of the situation at UNCC.
Thus it remains unclear what, if any, formal investigations have been launched or whether WCU believes Price's comments were taken out of context or deceptively edited. The release of the footage is likely to place renewed pressure on both WCU and the UNC System to clarify their adherence to the DEI ban and determine whether Price’s comments amount to a violation of the Board’s directive, or simply a reflection of administrative adaptation to complex political realities.
“It's really hard to tell whether or not they they're using a workaround or if they're just doing whatever the heck they want and ignoring the rules,” Guillette said. “And I think that's on the Board of Governors to determine. It's undeniable that these people think that they're above the law, that they think that they're above the rules and that they're going to do whatever the heck they want, and it's clear to me that they're either ignoring the rules or circumventing them and that action needs to be taken.”
