UNC faces lawsuit over alleged pattern of closed-door meetings including Bill Belichick hire

A lawsuit has accused the University of North Carolina and its board of trustees of illegally hiring head football coach Bill Belichick behind closed doors in December. 

Former UNC provost Chris Clemens and lawyer David McKenzie filed the lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court, and it alleges Belichick’s hiring is one of many instances where closed sessions occurred at the public university.

The lawsuit points to an alleged “pattern and practice” at UNC to conceal “matters of grave public concern behind closed doors.” One of those matters includes potential conference realignment.

Clemens also alleges that he was punished after “leaking closed-session information” to faculty members about a meeting with tenure deferral as the main topic of the lawsuit. 

“As Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, [Clemens] briefed deans and vice chancellors internally about the Board’s tenure policy posture after a closed session so they could manage faculty expectations,” the lawsuit reads. “The Board’s subsequent effort to punish him for ‘leaking’ closed-session information only highlights the culture of secrecy at odds with the Open Meetings Law and Public Records Law.”

As for Belichick’s hiring, the lawsuit alleges that “substantive deliberation occurred in secret” on Dec. 12, 2024, in an emergency board meeting. The lawsuit charges that, since Belichick’s “compensation package and entire hiring was already public,” there was no need for the closed session. 

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“The Board did not present any comparable thirty-year ‘net present cost’ analysis, nor did it invoke long-horizon fiscal restraint to defer that decision for a single UNC employee,” the lawsuit states after spelling out Belichick’s compensation for joining the Tar Heels.

Athletics beyond football were used as examples in the lawsuit, including an alleged November 2023 closed session to discuss a potential UNC’s ACC alignment, comparing it to “potential financial outcomes with SEC or Big Ten membership.”

The lawsuit alleges another conference realignment closed session occurred in May 2024. 

“The Board again used closed session to debate conference realignment strategy and athletics department finances,” the lawsuit reads. “There is no statutory exemption that permits closed discussion of institutional affiliations and budget planning.”

The lawsuit adds: “Each episode follows the same pattern: the Board invokes a statutory exemption, enters closed session, then discusses broad policy or budget matters that must be debated publicly. The Board compounds these violations by maintaining inadequate general accounts that prevent public understanding of what transpired.”

McKenzie has a history with litigation against UNC, having come out on top in a lawsuit against the university and its Board of Trustees after the May 2024 conference realignment session. 

A temporary restraining order was granted on May 16, 2024, one day after McKenzie filed the suit, which stopped the board “from going into closed session to discuss UNC Athletics’ financials, budgeting, deficit or ongoing future conference realignment and related strategic planning.” UNC later settled with McKenzie at $25,000 in July 2024 for the lawsuit. 

Belichick’s hire included a closed session, which lasted 41 minutes and ultimately led to his hiring as well as women’s head soccer coach Damon Nahas at UNC. It was a shock to the football world, as Belichick had not coached in college over his illustrious career. 

As the lawsuit states, Belichick was hired on a salary of $10 million per season with additional compensation for bringing his sons Steve and Brian Belichick onto his coaching staff. 

The suit states that Belichick’s agreement placed the “total exposure well into the tens of millions over five years.”

Belichick’s college coaching debut has been pedestrian to start, having gone 2-2 over his first four games. 

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