If you couldn’t guess already—the UNC law professor and head of the new N.C. Poverty Research Fund don’t like it:

“The decision to hamper Greensboro voters’ ability to alter the structures of local government without permission, in a way not forced upon others, does present a significant equal protection question under the 14th Amendment,” Nichol said Thursday.

Nichol, a former dean of the UNC and University of Colorado law schools, is an expert in constitutional law and federal court procedures and jurisdiction.

“Regardless of whether a state is a home rule state, it is not free to violate the equal protection clause,” Nichol said. “The Supreme Court has paid attention to unique electoral or regulatory burdens in the past.”

Nichol —he also don’t like the John Locke Foundation or the J.W. Pope Center, especially after the Pope Center’s Jay Schalin called into question the ethics and legality of Nichol’s move to reopen the Center for Poverty, Work, and Opportunity “>under a new name.

Nichol didn’t want to comment on the Pope Center’s criticism other than to say he would’t comment on claims from yet one more ridiculous ass at the (John) Locke outfit.”