While the Bill Belichick era at North Carolina may have stumbled to a 2-2 start, that hasn’t stopped the Tar Heels from making plenty of headlines this season.
And that’s not just because of the new cover of US Weekly, but also a lawsuit obtained by Front Office Sports, which accuses UNC-Chapel Hill of using secretive practices to illegally hire the six-time Super Bowl champion head coach.
The lawsuit, filed by former university provost Chris Clemens on Monday, centers on his resignation from the role, which he says served as punishment for “‘leaking’ closed-session information” to other faculty members. While the meeting in question focused on tenure, he also cited multiple instances in which he claims the university’s board of trustees demonstrated a “systematic misuse of closed sessions to hide policy debates from public view.”
Such alleged examples include a Dec. 12, 2024, “emergency meeting” that was called to discuss and approve the hiring of Belichick. The board later held a public vote to affirm the 73-year-old’s hiring and the terms of his five-year, $50 million contract, which makes him the highest paid state employee in the state of North Carolina.
The complaint also claims that the board used similar tactics to call a closed door session to compare the financial aspects of its current membership in the ACC to potential membership in the Big Ten and SEC. While North Carolina has remained in the ACC since, the lawsuit states that officials also held a closed door meeting in May 2024 “to debate 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 alleges. “The Board compounds these violations by maintaining inadequate general accounts that prevent public understanding of what transpired.”
In a statement to Front Office Sports, UNC board of trustees chair Malcolm Turner dismissed Clemens’s allegations, calling them “disappointing and inaccurate, not to mention a waste of taxpayer dollars, for which this former officer of the University shows no regard.” The lawsuit was filed two days after the Tar Heels’ 34-9 loss to UCF, which dropped North Carolina’s record to .500 through Belichick’s first four games as the program’s head coach.
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.