Last week I wrote about Janique Sanders, the Assisstant Director of Leadership and Community Engagement at UNC-Charlotte. Sanders was caught on video by undercover journalists for Accuracy in Media explaining that UNC was still promoting DEI despite a vote by the Board of Governors last year that put an end to the practice. “We’ve renamed, we’ve reorganized, we’ve recalibrated so to speak,” Sanders explained. She added that it was still possible to do DEI “work that is covert.”
Two days after the video appeared on X, Sanders was let go by UNC-Charlotte.
UNC Charlotte says an administrator is “no longer employed” after a video went viral of her implying work related to diversity, equity and inclusion was still happening on campus…
“The employee’s statements were inaccurate and do not reflect the University’s actions,” UNC Charlotte Deputy Chief Communications Officer Christy Jackson told The Charlotte Observer Thursday afternoon.
You see, Janique Sanders wasn’t at all representative of how things work at UNC. She was a rogue administrator whose ideas don’t reflect the school. At least that’s the story UNC was telling. But here we are a week later and another administrator has just been caught saying basically the same thing, this time at UNC-Asheville. This administrator’s name is Megan Pugh.
Newly released undercover video shows a university administrator in North Carolina boasting about DEI efforts still taking place at the school despite state and federal efforts to roll back the policies, prompting the school to sever ties with that employee.
“I mean we probably still do anyway… but you gotta keep it quiet,” UNC Asheville Dean of Students Megan Pugh tells an undercover journalist in a video released by Accuracy In Media and exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, after being praised for continuing to do “equity work” at the school.
“Keep it on the down low?” the journalist responds, to which Pugh says, “Yeah.”
“But, I love breaking rules,” Pugh then says.
Megan Pugh is another DEI administrator straight out of central casting.
I haven’t watched that full hour-long event yet, but you can still find it on Facebook.
“Social Justice as Science Fiction: The Queerness of Liberation”
Here’s the university’s promotional material for the event. pic.twitter.com/EOQbmHeQH2
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) June 3, 2025
She was a self-described “equity educator” who spent four years in the office of multicultural affairs.
Megan Pugh made $83,050 as Dean of Students in 2023.
She has been at the university for more than 8 years.
Most of her time has been at the “Office of Multicultural Affairs.” pic.twitter.com/rxLWyOMfaz
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) June 3, 2025
I made this point last week, but the Board of Governors vote to eliminate DEI happened a year ago. So it’s not as if these administrators were caught off guard based on a change that just happened last week. They’ve had a full year to wrap their minds around this and yet, it obviously didn’t change their approach at all, except maybe to make them slightly less open about what they do.
In this case, Pugh goes on to say that she’d be open to having some “implicit bias training” even though she knows the school is opposed to it. She’s also asked at one point in this exchange if the school supports her keeping the DEI going despite the BOG vote and she replies “M-hm.” Keep that in mind as you read this new response about her firing today.
In response to a Fox News Digital inquiry about the video, a UNC Asheville spokesperson said the school is “aware of a video in which an employee makes comments implying that the University does not comply with UNC System policies or legal requirements and supports employees disregarding such obligations.”
“These remarks do not represent the practices of UNC Asheville. The University remains firmly committed to upholding all UNC System policies as well as federal and state laws, both in principle and in practice.”
The university added that after a “prompt review of the matter” the “individual is no longer employed by the university.”
So, just like last week, this doesn’t represent UNC. The Dean of Students for this campus, who said the school supports her in the video, doesn’t represent them.
Sure. Whatever you say, UNC-Asheville.
Once is a fluke but twice on two different campuses suggests to me this is probably happening everywhere in the UNC system. None of the old DEI employees were let go, they just moved into other jobs and they are still doing their thing and hoping no one will notice. Or more likely, they are doing it with the winking approval of their superiors who also don’t care as long as no one gets caught.
Clearly this video was recorded prior to Sanders being fired last week, otherwise word would have spread and people like Pugh would be keeping quiet. How many more undercover videos like this does AIM already have? How many more DEI administrators flouting the rules are there at UNC? I guess we’ll see. Here’s the full video.
