UNC Board of Trustee members publicly oppose ACC expansion, but it has no bearing on a vote

This statement should have minimal to no impact on Friday's discussion between ACC presidents on whether to invite Cal, Stanford, and SMU.

Photo by Gene Gallin on Unsplash

This article is an opinion piece from the writer. His opinions are his alone.

As Cal fans waited for the morning for a potential invite to the Atlantic Coast Conference, some news dropped!

It was maybe bad news! Sort of? Maybe? Not really?

Members of the North Carolina Board of Trustees released a statement. And they are mad about the rumors of Cal, Stanford and SMU joining the ACC. Big mad! Here you go:

“The strong majority of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Board of Trustees opposes the proposed expansion of the Atlantic Coast Conference to include Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Southern Methodist University,” the statement read. “Although we respect the academic excellence and the athletic programs of those institutions, the travel distances for routine in-conference competitive play are too great for this arrangement to make sense for our student athletes, coaches, alumni and fans.

“Furthermore, the economics of this newly imagined transcontinental conference do not sufficiently address the income disparity ACC members face. Without ironclad assurances that the proposed expansion serves the interest of UNC-Chapel Hill, we believe it should be voted down.”

I’ll keep this brief because I’ve written a ton of words on this.

This statement is not a reason to panic.

The UNC Board of Trustees has no power on this matter. The UNC Chancellor will cast the vote. The Board of Trustees cannot override him.

The majority of members of the UNC Board of Trustees are conservatives. The two members who issued this statement are hard conservative. One of these members (the Trustee Chair) was responsible for creating the equivalent of a school of Cancel Culture. The other one gave an interview to an organization claiming that Exercise Science was under threat from DEI.

There is no easier punching bag for conservatives than anything California. Issuing this statement is a great way to rattle the base, which just loves to do anything but put the Golden State in a lockbox and drop it from tall cliffs.

Not serious people. This is saber-rattling.

Why issue a public statement like this if you’ve already won? There must be serious concern about ACC conference members trying to flip the vote, whether it’s NC State or the UNC Chancellor. Either one of these votes would be enough for Cal, Stanford and SMU to advance to the invite stage.

But the chancellor is the one who votes. And Chancellor Guskiewicz and the Trustees have been at odds for awhile. I would not imagine this public statement being the reason he moves his vote one way or another.

Could Cal, Stanford, and SMU not have the ACC votes? Yes. It’s possible that this keeps dragging on, and Cal and Stanford have to start thinking of alternatives.

But it’s not going to be because of this LiveJournal confession by the UNC Board of Trustees. Saber-rattle elsewhere for the woke mind virus. Let this play out.

It’s also important to note that Kevin Guskiewicz likes to quote…Clark Kerr, former Chancellor of the University of California.

“The university is so many things to so many different people that it must, of necessity, be partially at war with itself."

At least many years as a Cal fan has prepared you for all of this noise.