Bell Hall, University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler School of Business. The University of North Carolina has officially instituted a policy that allows administrators to record classes without notice under certain circumstances.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has adopted a new policy that explicitly allows administrators to record classes without notifying faculty, a practice that first drew national attention after the university secretly recorded economics professor Larry Chavis.
The policy, which took effect Feb. 16, allows university officials, with written authorization from the provost and university legal counsel, to record or access class recordings without the instructor’s knowledge for the purpose of investigating alleged violations of the policy or for other lawful purposes. Faculty must receive advance notice when recordings are used for routine evaluations (such as tenure and promotion reviews) but not for investigations.
Chavez declined to comment directly and referred to poets and quants to his lawyer Artur Davis. We’ve reached out and will update this story when we hear back.
We also posed a series of questions to UNC Media Relations. They provided the following statement:
“The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Class Recording Policy has been finalized and released to provide clear procedures for when and how to record classes under the circumstances outlined in the policy, and to protect faculty and students. The policy was developed based on feedback from across campus, including College Governance, the Office of Faculty Affairs, Human Resources, the College Board of Governors, and the Office of University Compliance.”
Administrators recorded four of Chavez’s classes
The new policy comes after nearly two years of controversy within the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business.
April 2024, Administrator Four meetings were secretly recorded Classroom cameras were used to film Chavez’s undergraduate course after complaints from students about course content and conduct. Senior associate dean Christian Lundblad told Chavez that “notification of the course of record is not required” during the formal review.
chavez told poets and quants At the time, the recordings appeared to contradict the business school’s own IT policy, which stated that classes could only be recorded with permission from the instructor. He also expressed concerns about student privacy and academic freedom, arguing that students in his courses discussed sensitive topics about race and belonging.
University officials said they comply with applicable laws but declined to disclose the complaint that prompted the review. Chavez, a clinical professor of strategy and entrepreneurship who worked at Kenan-Flagler for 18 years, told us Pu’an Q He believes the recordings were made in retaliation for publicly criticizing the school on issues such as teacher diversity and pay equity.
Outspoken critic of Kenan-Flagler
Larry Chavez
Chavez was a teaching professor at the Kenan-Flagler School of Business and received his PhD in economics from the Stanford University Graduate School of Management. He is a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina and frequently incorporates issues of mental health, race, and equity into his courses and writing.
While he said starting at Kenan-Flagler in 2006 felt like “coming home,” he also became a public critic when he felt it was necessary. October 2022, Chavez quoted in a news article The Daily Tar Heel, UNC’s student newspaper, criticized Kenan-Flagler’s record on race and gender as the school searched for a new dean.
“The challenges Carolina faces with diversity and inclusion are well known across the country, and I think Kenan-Flagler is the worst, or one of the worst,” Chavez told the newspaper. He added that there are “conservatives,” especially professors who are afraid of the way the world is changing.
He called for more faculty diversity at Kenan-Flagler College and better pay equity for women and minorities, and was roundly criticized for telling students to wear sports team uniforms with Native American names or logos that would violate the school’s honor code because it was disrespectful to Native students.
In April 2024, before the recording, he read aloud an email exchange between him and Kenan-Flagler College’s new dean, Mary Margaret Frank, in an undergraduate international development course that focused on indigenous issues. He uses this as an example of how not to build an inclusive environment in your organization.
“I said[during the class discussion]that this was not something that was directed at our dean, but because my issue really fell into two worlds, the challenges faced by faculty from marginalized groups, specifically from Native American groups,” he told P&Q at the time. He believes it was this reading, along with other concerns, that prompted administrators to record his classes.
On April 22, Kenan-Flagler Senior Associate Dean Christian Lundblad sent Chavis an email informing him that school officials had recorded and reviewed several classes at different times over four days in response to student reports “regarding class content and conduct.”
There was two months between recording and filming
Chavez went public shortly after receiving Lundbold’s email. He made multiple posts about the recordings on LinkedIn and also spoke with poets and quants Many media reports.
Two months later, UNC notified Chavez of his Annual contracts will not be renewed 18 years later. No reason was provided.
Chavez told P&Q that the speed of the entire process – from review in April to termination in June – prevented him from getting a clear picture of what was going on.
A confidential evaluation noted “inconsistencies” between course descriptions and content and included complaints from students that discussions focused too much on Chavez’s personal experience. Chavez disputed that characterization, saying comments were taken out of context and positive comments ignored.
The case sparked a campus-wide debate, and UNC’s provost said the university would develop a formal classroom recording policy — the same one it has now.
Lawsuit alleges retaliation
In September 2024, Chavez submitted a civil rights litigation Alleges in federal court that he was retaliated against for publicly criticizing the university on issues of diversity, pay equity and inclusion, claiming his First Amendment rights were violated.
The lawsuit alleges that the recording itself was illegal because neither the professor nor the student consented. North Carolina is a one-party consent state, which raises questions about who, if anyone, authorized the recordings.
Chavez is seeking back wages, damages and an injunction prohibiting similar conduct.
As for tangible damages, Chavez seeks back wages, advance payments, lost benefits and attorney fees in the lawsuit. He also requested a permanent injunction to prevent UNC from continuing the alleged illegal conduct that led to his dismissal.
Chavez told P&Q last fall: “It’s certainly not about winning the case. It’s a cliche – but I can understand why that cliche exists now – but it’s about delivering justice in the way the jury sees fit.”
According to Chavez’s LinkedIn information, he joined Kalamazoo College in Michigan as a visiting assistant professor of economics in September 2025.
Teachers’ counterattack
The newly adopted rules largely codify UNC’s investigative record powers previously exercised in the Chavez case, but with written procedures and oversight requirements.
At the same time, students may not record classes without instructor permission, except with approved disability or religious accommodations. Instructors who record their own classes must notify students. If an administrator makes a recording without notification, participants will only be informed if the recording directly affects the disciplinary process.
The university also said it will issue an annual report disclosing how often it authorizes no-notice recordings.
It is reported Inside higher educationThe rollout of the policy has left teachers across the school frustrated.
After Chavez released secret recordings of his classes, then-provost Chris Clemens told professors that a formal policy would be developed, but months passed without any update. Faculty leaders only recently saw a draft, and many professors said they learned the policy was finalized through AAUP chapters and local news reports rather than directly from the university. That prompted more complaints about transparency and consultation in the process.
Allowing administrators to secretly record academic courses “is something that the governments of Iran, Syria, and East Germany would have done, and probably the then-military regimes of Argentina and Brazil,” Mehdi Shadmehr, an associate professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina, told Inside High Ed.
“But what about in America? It’s crazy.”
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