Maya Little Honor Court Appeal Will Proceed: UNC

UNC graduate student Maya Little will receive a hearing in her appeal of an Honor Court decision finding her responsible for damaging Silent Sam earlier this year.

On Monday, UNC Judicial Programs Officer Aisha Pridgen accepted Little’s request for an appeal. The case now goes to UNC’s University Hearings Board.

Click here to read Pridgen’s statement.

Little was arrested on April 30 after an anti-Silent Sam demonstration in which she poured a mixture of red paint and her own blood on the statue. In October, she was found guilty of “defacing a public monument” in Orange County court, but Judge Samantha Cabe declined to impose a sentence.

But Little also faced a separate charge of “damaging university property” in UNC’s Honor Court. Last month, in a 3-2 decision, a five-judge panel found Little responsible and sentenced her to 18 hours of community service.

Little is appealing that ruling on three grounds: “insufficiency of evidence,” “denial of basic rights,” and the “severity of sanctions.”

Click here to read Little’s appeal.

The “insufficiency of evidence” appeal asserts that the Honor Court didn’t have enough evidence to conclude that pouring paint on the statue constituted “damage.” (It was on that question that the original Honor Court judges were divided: it cost the university more than $4,000 to clean the statue, but two of the five judges concluded that the word “damage” implied a more permanent defacement.)

Click here to read the Honor Court ruling.

The “denial of basic rights” appeal is based on the Honor Court’s decision not to require one of the judges to recuse himself from the case. Little had objected to Frank Pray, who had made public comments supporting Silent Sam; Little and her supporters walked out of the hearing after the judges ruled that Pray could remain on the panel.

The “severity of sanctions” appeal asserts that the Honor Court imposed a sentence on Little that was far more severe than other sentences it had imposed in similar previous cases. (In particular, Little’s appeal cites the case of UNC football players who spray-painted Duke’s visiting locker room in 2015; that action cost UNC more than $27,000, but the Honor Court ultimately imposed no sanction at all.)

It is now up to the University Hearings Board to determine how the case will proceed. According to the pro-Little organization Take Action Chapel Hill, the board could “dismiss the case, remand the case for rehearing, or do nothing.”

In her statement granting Little’s appeal request, Pridgen says her decision is solely procedural: “Nothing in this letter should be construed as an expression of opinion regarding the merits of your appeal or whether it should result in relief of any sort.” The University Hearings Board is responsible for making those determinations.

Pridgen says the appeal hearing will be scheduled at a later date, “as promptly as possible with all necessary parties’ availability in mind.”