UNC student newspaper satire sparks outrage on campus – Raleigh News & Observer

On the morning of April 1, incoming UNC-Chapel Hill student body president Devin Duncan received a text asking him if Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, was coming to campus.

Why?

The student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, had published an article with the following headline: “Trump orders Alcohol Law Enforcement in Chapel Hill to be replaced with ICE agents.”

“Last Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced that he would be sending the United States’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement to its next high-crime destination: Chapel Hill, North Carolina,” the article begins.

It was a satire article published as part of the Daily Tar Heel’s annual April Fools’ edition. The problem, according to some students and campus groups, is that it wasn’t funny. In fact, it was terrifying.

That story was part of a slew of satirical news items from the Daily Tar Heel, with headlines like “UNC brings back DEI — for whites,” “The new plan for the Dean Dome — a two-stadium solution” and “Hubert Davis rushes to find summer internship.” Davis is the recently fired men’s basketball coach at UNC. In the initial email blast of the “DTH At a Glance” newsletter, the articles were not clearly labeled as satire.

“I had almost thought the Daily Tar Heel had been hacked,” Duncan said. “To read some of those articles, they were very unsettling, disrespectful, and insensitive.”

The editor-in-chief, Alli Pardue, published an official apology later that same day, and the stories about ICE and the Dean Dome have been taken down. Still, Duncan says it took the student journalists too long to react to the outrage.

“While we stand by our belief in the importance of satire writing, we undeniably missed the mark here — big time,” Pardue wrote in a statement to The News & Observer. “We did not package this content with enough consideration and care, and it caused real harm to the very communities we work to uplift and platform.”

Campus organizations like Students United for Immigrant Equality and the Black Student Movement posted statements condemning the articles. Students took to TikTok and Instagram to express their outrage.

Current student body president Adolfo Alvarez issued a statement as well.

Editor’s Note: Years ago, in the 1970s, while at UNC Charlotte, I was editor of the campus newspaper, The Carolina Journal. It was the same, Spring Break, people heading to the beach, we published a satire issue, and oh yes –same reaction and politics. Even the local tv station then, WSOC, put online an editorial condemning me and the school for our gross errors. Satire is in the mind of the beholder, and those with vision, miss the boat. History repeats itself. –DrWeb

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