President Donald Trump’s pick to run the agency that oversees federal workers’ labor rights founded and ran a student newspaper that belittled and disparaged Black, LGBTQ+, Jewish groups and individuals, among others.
Charlton Allen, who Trump nominated to be general counsel at the Federal Labor Relations Authority, appeared before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs for his confirmation hearing Wednesday, alongside a dozen other nominees.
In 1993, while in law school at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Allen founded the Carolina Review as a conservative campus newspaper. His leadership and writing at the paper have raised concerns from federal employee groups whose labor disputes he would adjudicate.
Allen’s writings and affiliation with the Carolina Review first surfaced in 2014 when then-Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, nominated him to a state commission. Indy Week reported a summary of the newspaper’s publishings at that time. Allen was confirmed to the role despite some state Democrats raising concerns about his past.
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In May 2025, Trump nominated Allen to lead the Office of Special Counsel, an agency that helps protect federal employees from whistleblower retaliation and other unlawful conduct, but withdrew the nomination six days later.
In September, Trump tapped Allen for the Federal Labor Relations Authority role, at which he would oversee investigations into alleged unfair labor practices by federal agencies against their employee unions.
The Carolina Review published bigoted articles under Allen’s leadership. One issue of the newspaper featured a Black man in the center of a bullseye to illustrate a cover story opposing the creation of a Black cultural center on campus. The author said the center “goes against the very beliefs of those who fought for civil rights.”
Another cover story featured a Jewish student running for student body president with horns and a pitchfork. One cover featured a Confederate flag with the headline “Southern Heritage.”
The White House and Allen did not respond to requests for comment. Allen previously said the reporting on his role at the Carolina Review was “grossly unfair” and “mischaracterized” him.
On Wednesday, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona) asked Allen about his time leading the newspaper, focusing specifically on the image of the Jewish student with horns and a pitchfork. Allen defended the issue and the image, saying the student depicted had discriminated against Christians on campus, and the illustration was intended to reference the nickname of UNC’s rival, the Duke Blue Devils. While he denied the issue was antisemitic, he said he would do things differently in retrospect.
“If I were 30 years ago advocating for the Review, I would say don’t run that cover,” Allen said. “I think it was a mistake.”
In the Carolina Review article that accompanied that illustration, Allen wrote that the candidate for student body president received preferential treatment because “he is Jewish.” He added that the student’s support for setting aside housing blocks for specific minority groups denied “opportunities to white students for no reason other than the color of their skin.”
A 1994 issue included an editorial, not written by Allen, that said “the gay lifestyle is the epitome of what is wrong with contemporary America.”
“Homosexuality is wrong,” the author wrote. “No ifs, ands or buts.” The author added it was “morally, legally and ethically repugnant.”
Another issue that year accused members of the Black Student Movement and the Black Cultural Center of blaming “your shortcomings on the fact that people you never met were enslaved.”
In one of the newspaper’s first issues, Allen laid out his vision for the publication by suggesting he was representing a voice often silenced on college campuses.
“The enemies of American Culture will be offered no quarter in the pages of the Review,” he said.
Previous reporting also identified that Allen, when serving as the chair of the New Hanover County Republicans in North Carolina in 2004, wrote a letter to voters to inform them a Democratic candidate for office was gay and they “deserve to know.”
Allen unsuccessfully ran for a state legislature seat in 2012, during which he responded to a candidate survey saying “homosexuals as a group” should not receive legal protections against discrimination.
The Federal Labor Relations Authority has been without a confirmed general counsel since Trump took office last year, leading to a backlog of more than 300 complaints currently awaiting adjudication.
In a February letter, federal employee groups opposed Allen’s nomination both for his past affiliations and his prior comments suggesting public sector employees should not hold collective bargaining rights.
Trump has signed multiple executive orders aimed at stripping such rights from the vast majority of federal workers. Those orders are currently subject to lawsuits, though agencies have already begun taking actions to enforce them.
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