The term “protecting the academic core” is getting to sound really tired. I keep hearing it here in North Carolina, as university-system officials explain how they are coping with cuts. By calling a program part of the “academic core,” these officials make it sacrosanct.

At a recent meeting of UNC-Chapel Hill trustees I learned that the school will have to cut its operations by 5 percent. (That figure doesn’t count some additional funding, such as a portion of $3.5 million in state matching funds for endowed professorships.)

I’m all for administrative cuts, but at some point, will someone look at what is actually being taught? I didn’t hear a peep about the possibility that perhaps there is something on the campus that should be cut. I didn’t hear a single trustee say that that maybe, just maybe, a course or program could be eliminated or replaced with something better. Perhaps UNC-Chapel Hill doesn’t need a “diversity advocate certificate.” Maybe the minor in social and economic justice — which doesn’t require a single course in economics — could be re-thought. Perhaps the social-justice pedagogy at the UNC’s School of Education could be replaced by courses that actually teach how to teach students in our K-12 system. No, we must preserve the (inviolable) “academic core.”