Darrell Allison
The blowback was swift after the University of North Carolina Board of Governors chose one of its own to be the next chancellor of Fayetteville State University.
The board's pick, Darrell Allison, resigned from the board in September to make a bid for the open chancellorship at the historically Black public university. But even before that move, Allison was a divisive figure in North Carolina higher education. He publicly supported a controversial plan to preserve Silent Sam -- a Confederate statue at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's campus -- after protesters pulled it down in 2018. He has no experience in teaching or administration in higher education, and he spent much of his career advocating for K-12 charter schools. He currently serves as a vice president at the American Federation for Children, a school choice advocacy organization that has given money to conservative groups and candidates and that was once chaired by Betsy DeVos, the former education secretary.