A New York-based not-for-profit foundation has withdrawn a $1.5 million grant intended for UNC-Chapel Hill.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation said in a statement that it withdrew the grant when it learned of the deal between the UNC System Board of Governors and the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

The Mellon Foundation’s Friday statement said the foundation had been working with the school to develop a grant proposal supporting “a campus-wide educational reckoning focusing on historical truth-telling and confronting the University’s entanglements with slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and the memorialization of the Confederacy.

“Allocating university funding toward protecting a statue that glorifies the Confederacy, slavery, and white supremacy — whether from public or private sources — runs antithetical to who we are and what we believe as a foundation,” the statement said.

UNC-Chapel Hill spokeswoman Kate Luck didn’t respond to an email from the AP seeking reaction on Friday. Prior to the foundation’s decision, WRAL reported that Luck said Thursday that the university was “in conversations” with the Mellon Foundation over its concerns about the settlement, but that the university was “not aware of any awarded grants that have been rescinded regarding this issue.” Luck maintained that position in talking to the television station on Friday.

Last month, UNC announced that Silent Sam would be given to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which would be banned from placing it in any of the 14 counties where UNC campuses are located. The statue was dedicated in 1913 to honor UNC alumni who fought for the Confederacy.

The agreement calls for university officials to put the $2.5 million in a private fund that would be used for expenses related to preserving the monument or potentially building a facility to house it. Officials have said no state money will be used for the fund.

The deal sparked multiple protests. Faculty members on the Chapel Hill campus condemned the agreement and protesters marched against it. The state attorney general’s office has distanced itself from the settlement as well.

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