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This Tuesday: Buncombe County Commissioners Meeting 8/19/25--arrive by 4:30 PM
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is Under Attack at UNC Asheville!
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is Under Attack at UNC Asheville!
Local news article about the firing of our Dean Megan Pugh.
Local news article about the firing of our Dean Megan Pugh.
Dear UNCA Administration,
We write to express our deep alarm and outrage at what appears to be a calculated rollback of UNC Asheville’s commitment to equity and inclusion, beginning with the abrupt removal of our trusted and respected Megan Pugh, a dean who championed DEI efforts on our campus.
The timing and method of this dismissal, executed during the summer months when students and faculty are least able to organize or respond, raises serious concerns about transparency, accountability, and political interference in university governance. For many students, especially those from historically marginalized communities, Megan represented safety, support, and a clear institutional commitment to our well-being. Her removal, under opaque circumstances, is not just a staffing decision; it is a message.
That message has only grown louder and more chilling with the follow-up action: an email sent to transgender students informing them that they will not be permitted to room with students of another gender in the upcoming year. This policy not only isolates and endangers trans students but also directly contradicts the inclusive values UNCA claims to uphold.
Taken together, these actions suggest a coordinated effort to suppress DEI leadership and to marginalize LGBTQ+ students, all while most of the student body is away for the summer. This is unacceptable.
-UNCA Student Action Coalition Resolution-
"To all those who read this message: BRING MEGAN PUGH BACK TO UNC ASHEVILLE!
Megan Pugh, the Dean of Students of UNC Asheville, was recently ousted from her role by university administration, as a result of a right-wing journalist goading her and recording her without her consent. In this video, she stated her commitment to protecting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives despite the UNC Board of Governor's attempts to dismantle it. As a result, multiple right-wing news organizations, including FOX News, have put her full name on the Internet out there, attacking her for daring to defend equity in a time of historic attacks against civil rights.
This is following a similar attempt by these same right-wing journalists to remove a UNC Charlotte administrator, and it is clear to all those who can see it that this is an attack targeted at Black women who are daring to stand up for their most diverse students, even against a deeply politicized, out-of-touch governmental entity.
As a current student at UNC Asheville who has been involved in student government and other clubs, I can say with certainty that Megan Pugh has been instrumental to my success and the success of the students here at UNCA. She is kind, compassionate, dedicated, and generous -- from my first few days at freshman orientation meeting her, to all the times where I have stopped by her office for support, to now, I can say with confidence that in this time of Republican opposition to the very values that UNCA has stood for, Megan Pugh has been the force that represents those values.
You are now seeing in real time what it means to silence diverse voices, and you are now seeing in real time the kind of unjust, prejudiced law that leads to the silencing of minority voices. There are people who say that if they were alive in the Civil Rights era, or during another similar time with great systemic injustices, they would speak out, stand against it, even if it would mean going against the law. The removal of DEI, despite DEI being a force that seeks to close proven institutional gaps in treatment of minorities, is blatantly a violation of civil rights, and Megan is part of the strength of UNC Asheville when it comes to resisting the discriminatory treatment of the Board of Governors. We must be part of that strength, too -- we must support her, as she has supported our community.
Megan Pugh fights for the right for all students to have EQUAL opportunity, and she was removed for that reason -- and she deserves to be reinstated. The UNCA community and the Asheville community at large do NOT stand for this decision, and this petition was created to reflect to the wider community of that.
I ask that you sign this, and send it to anyone and everyone you can -- whether they go to UNC Asheville or not, or whether they live in Asheville or not, or even whether they live in North Carolina or not. Repost it on your Instagram stories, share it on Facebook, share it to incoming students, alumni, faculty, etc. I also ask that if you have had a positive experience with Megan, that it would mean the world to me and to others if you would write it down with your signature. The world needs to see that she is supported -- and she deserves to see that she is supported."
-Marcos, President of UNCA YDSA
LGBT Students rights are under attack... Trans students forced to move from their preferred housing by email this summer!
Letter to Mountain Xpress Newspaper by UNCA Assistant Professor Blu Buchanan
"Trans students in Asheville are under attack. Not from far-right vigilantes, anti-trans grifters or hell-slinging preachers, but from UNC Asheville, which claims to “respect diversity” and “work for inclusion.”
On Wednesday, June 11, leaders of the Trans Student Union (TSU) were contacted by anxiety-ridden members about an email they received from UNCA. The email stated that their housing would be reassigned to comply with a 2013 UNC policy banning gender-inclusive housing on its campuses.
Although many of the students who were contacted had already changed their legal sex assignment through the appropriate mechanisms, they were still deemed in violation of the policy. Some, per a WLOS article, were told to detransition to keep their housing assignments. All the affected trans students had their university records changed unilaterally and were told they had a week to resolve the issue before their housing would be impacted.
This is in direct opposition to the practice of gender-inclusive housing established by the university until national right-wing attention fell on the campus. It appears that the first group to be sacrificed for the public image of the campus has been trans students."
Housing matters to everyone, but it affects trans people in particular ways. The 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey reports that "nearly one-third (30%) of respondents had experienced homelessness in their lifetime." Housing is generally a site of physical and emotional violence, and trans people often have fewer resources to leverage when their housing suddenly becomes insecure. Many of these students alo chose UNCA due to its notional reputation as a gender-inclusive community, and rolling back the gender-affirming housing assignments puts these students at risk. To have this taken away is heartbreking and horrifying to our campus community.
Trans students have already crafted research papers and given their input to the university, only to have it ignored. Join us as we demand preventative resources and policies to fight transphobia in UNCA housing."
Blu Buchanon
Assistant Professor- Department of Sociology and Anthropology @UNC Asheville
SAC Treasurer Matthew Zimmerman representing Save UNCA Woods at the Ashevillle Bernie Sanders Rally recently (Click Photo to learn more about the rest of SAC Leadership)
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