Façade – a false appearance that makes someone and something seem more pleasant or better than they really are.
Last November our university adopted a new brand campaign, “First. And For All,” to prove UNC’s commitment and dedication to “making higher education accessible for all North Carolinians.” This campaign is claimed to be rooted in our university’s “dedication to public progress and to be a leader in research that drives breakthroughs and solves real problems.” On paper this university sounds like the right place to be, but many Black students and students of color, like myself, have lived experiences that disprove UNC’s new campaign.
The clear message is: this university was built upon institutional racism and has continued to protect its racist actions by denying and disguising its oppression of Black students and students of color.
Open discrimination, microagressions (that are oftentimes macro), and disregard for the needs of the Black campus population did not just begin in the 2025-26 academic year, but arrived with the first admitted African American students, John Lewis Brandon, Leroy Fraiser, and Ralph Fraiser, in 1955.
The decision to integrate was not a step the university willingly took to advocate for the simple inclusion of Black students, but was legally forced into by desegregation laws (Brown v. Board of Education).
That being said, UNC has failed repeatedly at respecting the “for all” aspect they desire to represent. The mere acknowledgment and accessibility of a Carolina education was a privilege our university did not want to give Black students since its beginning. Over time, discrimination and lack of accessibility has shown its face towards us in each generation and in different ways.
The most recent being the redaction of affirmative action in June 2023. The population of Black students admitted to UNC’s most recent class has trickled down to 7.8%. Though this came also by legal force, it is purely in accordance with the university’s founding values, “For Them.” We have been denied access to the university, and if given access denied opportunities within.
Considering my luck of becoming a member of this university, accessibility is something that is still not freely given and in no way equitably. Internal segregation by placing the majority of Black Students on south campus, limiting our access to build community through dissemination of community-centered spaces, like the Upendo, and even declining our ability to see representation within our faculty and professors who have unsuitably been disrespected and denied progress as well.
They applaud our advances when it looks good for them and hide our struggles when it doesn’t hold the same tune. This rhetoric also spreads to our peers in the form of willful ignorance that results in us encountering unsought racists actions that make us question our ability to be respected for who we are. This all is a reflection of our university and our country. As the place where young adults are supposed to learn from others, Carolina voluntarily lacks the diversity that would expose and enlighten our counterparts to the culture in which they love to partake and claim they wish to respect.
If UNC desires their rebrand to make this campus a university “for all,” it needs to be honest with itself and acknowledge the harm that it’s done against the African American community, as well as throughout the nation, and take accountability in recognizing that affirmative action means equitable opportunity.
Equity acknowledges that the treatment, accessibility and opportunity of education was never fair for African Americans in this country. Equity allows our university, and nation, to understand its obligation to balance the scale and maintain fairness towards all of its students and applicants.
Until then, the Carolina that I attend and truly do love, will never be a university “For All,” but always “For Them.”
