The North Carolina Historical Commission did not take action on Friday to remove or leave in place Confederate monuments on state grounds in Raleigh.

The state body instead voted to create a committee of commission members to study the issue and come back to the commission with a recommendation at the board’s April 2018 meeting.

A petition to remove the monuments was brought forward by Democratic Governor Roy Cooper, who was asking that the monuments be relocated to a Civil War battlefield in Johnston County.

The motion passed on Friday calls for legal opinions to be sought from around the state regarding the commission’s legal authority to order the monuments be removed. Friday’s vote also calls for a study of the sites being proposed to house the monuments, for national experts to be brought in to offer guidance and for the commission to review memos from Republican leaders of the North Carolina House and Senate, who have opposed moving the monuments.

Dr. Mary Lynn Bryan was the acting chairwoman for Friday’s meeting and said this issue was outside of normal practice for the commission.

“This kind of decision that we’re being asked to make is a precedent-setting decision,” she said. “We’re really not used to, as a body, having issues that are this deep and this problematic coming before us in such a short period of time without having an opportunity to look carefully at the ramifications of what we’re doing.”

Commission member David Ruffin said he knew there would be disappointment regarding the lack of a definitive ruling on Friday.

“And I know that when you postpone a decision of this magnitude there’s almost universal disappointment or that someone’s punting or they just can’t make a decision,” Ruffin said, “but I do think there’s some wisdom at some level that we reach something and make decisions out of the heat of this current political environment.”

Dr. Valerie Johnson – who serves on the Historical Commission and the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission – said it was appropriate to study the issue in order to come back and make a thorough decision moving forward.

“The postponement isn’t to put it off indefinitely, but that there will be a decision made,” she said. “And that we are exercising, as a commission, our ability to weigh in on matters of extreme importance in this state. And that we’re doing so in a thoughtful manner, in a reflective manner, but that we are going to hold ourselves to truth.”

Johnson added it was important to make this decision with future generations in mind.

“We respect history,” she said. “But it’s not static. And we need to recognize that it’s not static and make it something living for all of North Carolinians.”

While the petition was brought to consider the monuments on the state grounds in Raleigh, local protests have been organized focusing on Silent Sam – the Confederate monument on UNC’s campus. But university officials did not petition the Historical Commission to consider Silent Sam’s removal on Friday. Instead, officials said they would be “carefully following these proceedings, which we hope will shed light on what standards the commission will be using to evaluate such matters.”

UNC chancellor Carol Folt has maintained that she would order the statue be removed, if she felt the university had the legal authority to do so. But she has also maintained that neither she nor the UNC – Chapel Hill Board of Trustees or UNC System administrators have that authority.

There was one committee member who voted Friday against establishing the committee and delaying taking action on the monuments.