North Carolina — N.C. Gen. Stat. 143-318.10 – 143-318.18 (2002).

Public bodies in North Carolina required to hold open meetings include any “elected or appointed authority, board commission, committee, council, or other body of the state, or…constituent institutions of the University of North Carolina…that (i) is composed of two or more members and (ii) exercises or is authorized to exercise a legislative, policy-making, quasi-judicial, administrative, or advisory function.”

In 1998, the North Carolina Court of Appeals held that an Undergraduate Court meeting at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was a “public body.” DTH Publ’g Corp. v. The Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 496 S.E.2d 8 (N.C. App. 1998). The Court’s reasoning included the fact that the court’s authority came from the student congress, which derived its authority from the chancellor, who in turn derived his authority from the board of trustees, who derived its authority from the board of governors of the university, which received its authority from North Carolina statute.

The court further noted that the court was authorized to exercise administrative or advisory function. A court likely would agree that a public university’s student congress or student government association is a public body because it is a link in this chain of authority and most student government associations exercise administrative or advisory functions.

The 1998 decision appears to conflict with a 1977 North Carolina Supreme Court decision that the Board of Governors at the University of North Carolina was not itself a “governmental body” of the state. Student Bar Ass’n Bd. of Governors v. Byrd, 293 N.E.2d 415 (N.C. 1977).

Although still on the books, the 1977 decision is likely no longer valid because the state’s definition of public body has changed significantly since the case was decided, including the addition of the phrase “exercises or is authorized to exercise a legislative, policy-making, quasi-judicial, administrative, or advisory function.”