Bob Donnan-Imagn Images
A new lawsuit accuses University of North Carolina Board of Trustees of illegally hiring head football coach Bill Belichick. The suit alleges that the trustees hired Belichick in an illegal closed session violating of North Carolina’s open-meetings and public-records laws.
The lawsuit was filed by former University of North Carolina provost Chris Clemens on Monday in Orange County Superior Court. Clemens claims he was forced to resign from his position after he raised concerns about board members conducting public business in closed sessions.
In the lawsuit, Clemens accuses the board of “systematically hiding matters of grave public concern behind closed doors: invoking closed session for reasons not authorized by statute, conducting deliberations electronically without proper notice or public access; and deliberately communicating about public business on autodeleting platforms such as Signal to evade records retention and public inspection.”
Bill Belichick and the closed sessions
He claims that the board used closed sessions at least three times for discussions about North Carolina athletics. One of those was an “emergency meeting” with “minimal notice” on Dec. 12, 2024 to approve the contract of football coach Bill Belichick, as well as that of North Carolina’s women’s soccer head coach Damon Nahas.
Earlier this year a report by ESPN revealed that the chair of the Board of Trustees at the time, John Preyer, and the rest of the Board members submitted an offer sheet to Belichick’s agent without athletic director Bubba Cunningham’s or chancellor Lee Roberts’ approval.
Other closed door meetings, according to the lawsuit, involved discussing North Carolina’s status in the Atlantic Coast Conference and how it compares financially to membership in the Big Ten or SEC, and a debate about “conference realignment strategy and athletics department finances.”
“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 lawsuit reads. “The Board compounds these violations by maintaining inadequate general accounts that prevent public understanding of what transpired.”
The University of North Carolina responds
Malcolm Turner, the current University of North Carolina Board of Trustees chair, issued a statement addressing the lawsuit, calling it a “baseless assault.”
“The former provost’s baseless assault on this volunteer board and how it conducts its business stands in stark contrast to the widely recognized excellence the university under this Board’s leadership. His allegations are disappointing and inaccurate. Not to mention, a waste of taxpayer dollars, for which this former officer of the university shows no regard. His claims will not withstand scrutiny.