The Provost and General Counsel deliberately misled the Faculty Senate about stopping the federal investigation of Poe Hall

To understand what happened, you first need some background on the alphabet soup of the agencies involved.

When the NC Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) receives a complaint about cancer in occupational settings, they typically steer the complainant to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (commonly referred to as the CDC) because of the CDC’s expertise in this area. The CDC is part of the federal government and is comprised of multiple centers, one of which is the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

NIOSH handles issues around cancer in occupational settings. If asked, they will conduct a federal investigation called a Health Hazard Evaluation (HHE). From the CDC: “A NIOSH HHE is an evaluation of a workplace to determine whether workers are exposed to hazardous materials, and whether these exposures are responsible for health risks, illness or injury, or harmful conditions. NIOSH may provide assistance and information by phone and in writing or may visit the workplace to assess exposures and employee health. Based on their findings, NIOSH investigators will recommend ways to reduce hazards and prevent work-related illnesses and injuries. The evaluation is done at no direct cost to the employees, employee representatives, or employers.”

What happened at the Faculty Senate meeting on February 6^th?

WRAL reported the day before that, “North Carolina State University asked a federal agency to stop investigating potentially high rates of cancer at a campus building.”

Both Provost Arden and General Counsel Newhart issued a strong denunciation of the WRAL report during the Senate meeting. According to an article in the NC State student newspaper, the Technician, the Provost said:

“What I can tell you is, we have never refused to cooperate with a federal investigation or federal requirements, and we have never asked for any case to be closed by NIOSH and anybody else. In fact, we’re working closely with the EPA, with NIOSH, with the State Department of Labor.”

The General Counsel then said:

“The conversations with NIOSH continue to be productive as we need to have them, but right now, they’re taking a backseat to all the hard work we’re doing to understand the building environment. And that was at their decision, not at NC State’s.”

Note carefully what they said:

• NCSU never refused to cooperate with a federal investigation (Arden)
• NCSU never asked for any case to be closed by NIOSH (Arden)
• Instead, NCSU is actually “working closely” with NIOSH (Arden) and continues to have “productive conversations” with them (Newhart)
• NIOSH decided to stop the investigation, not NCSU (clearly implied by Newhart when she said, “that was at their decision, not at NC State’s.”)

What do we know about the federal investigation?

These documents come from WRAL reporter Keely Arthur and an unknown employee in Poe Hall who is listed as the “primary requestor” in a NIOSH letter. Here is what we know about how NCSU stopped the federal investigation (my emphases in bold).

NCDHHS told Arthur via email that at some point, “we recommended that NCSU request a health hazard evaluation from NIOSH.”

The CDC press office told Arthur that, “NIOSH received two requests for a Health Hazard Evaluation (HHE) regarding Poe Hall at North Carolina State University (NCSU). The first request was from NCSU. NIOSH had an initial meeting with the requestors to discuss the HHE request in November 2023. NCSU’s general counsel withdrew the request in January 2024. The second request was from three NCSU employees. Because the workers involved in this HHE request are state government employees, NIOSH does not have the authority to proceed with its evaluation without the cooperation of NCSU.”

The NIOSH letter says that, “… the North Carolina State University’s Office of General Counsel has asked us to stop our evaluation …” Later in the letter they say that “Because … the university did not want assistance from the HHE program, we are not able to proceed further. Thus, we decided to close the HHE at this time.”

Why were the Provost and General Counsel not honest with the Faculty Senate?

NCSU knew full well that when they withdrew their request, the investigation would stop. Indeed, that’s why the Team Lead from NIOSH specifically stated in their letter that the Office of General Counsel asked them to stop the investigation; withdrawing the request shut everything down.

I can only speculate that Arden and Newhart never dreamed that the CDC would provide definitive proof that NCSU shut down the investigation and thus felt confident to mislead the Senate. Then, in case the truth came out, they likely chose their words very carefully so they could later claim they were telling the truth. I can imagine them saying the following:

• The HHE is a federal evaluation, not an investigation, so it’s true we never refused to cooperate with a federal investigation.
• Okay, so maybe it is an investigation, but the investigation never began because we withdrew our request first. So, it’s still true that we never refused to cooperate with a federal investigation.
• We withdrew the request and we never said anything else to NIOSH, so technically we never asked for a case to be closed.
• We just said we were working closely with NIOSH, so it’s not our fault you took it to mean that we were actually working with their investigators. And by working closely, we meant we exchanged a few emails.
• NIOSH did indeed stop the investigation; that’s what happened when we withdrew our request. So technically they stopped it, not us, even though our withdrawal forced them to stop, and the investigation would have continued if we had not withdrawn our request.

Is this what we expect from our University leadership when discussing something that is literally a matter of life and death for faculty, staff and students? Either deliberate lies or a careful parsing of words that collectively misled us as to what actually happened with the federal government?

Chancellor Woodson should fire both the Provost and the General Counsel for their statements to the Faculty Senate.