Silent Sam Decision Clouding Start of UNC Academic Year

Protesters pulled the Confederate monument known as Silent Sam down from its pedestal on McCorkle Place on the UNC campus one year ago. But the monument’s future – whether on or off campus – is still undecided.

That event on August 20, 2018, was the culmination of protests calling for the university administration to remove the statue that had stood on the Carolina campus since 1913.

A series of rallies were subsequently held around the monument’s remaining base, bringing about confrontations between groups supporting the Confederate monument and those who had been calling for its removal. Dozens of individuals were also arrested across those protests.

The ongoing protests caused strain on campus and town resources, also forcing local businesses to close in some instances.

There has been a lot of change on the campus since Silent Sam was toppled.

UNC proposed building a new $5 million facility to house the monument and provide teaching and exhibit space; that plan was rejected by the UNC System Board of Governors in December. Chancellor Carol Folt then announced in mid-January that she was ordering the statue’s remaining base be removed due to public safety threats. That same Board of Governors then accelerated Folt’s resignation timeline up from the end of the academic year, as Folt had proposed, to the end of January. The UNC System President Margaret Spellings also left the university system in early 2019, where former UNC Health Care CEO Bill Roper is leading the system on an interim basis.

Roper named longtime UNC – Chapel Hill researcher, faculty member and administrator Kevin Guskiewicz as the interim chancellor to replace Folt.

While both Roper and Guskiewicz have publicly said the statue should not be returned to campus, that decision ultimately rests with the system’s Board of Governors – who have appeared divided over the issue, even in recent months.

Five members of the Board of Governors were assigned to work with the campus to develop a plan regarding the future of the monument, but after a deadline for a plan to come forward has been delayed twice, there is no timeframe of when a decision could be announced.

Meanwhile, groups who were associated with the events one year ago when Silent Sam was toppled are planning an anniversary celebration at Peace and Justice Plaza in downtown Chapel Hill – across from the Confederate monument’s home for more than 100 years – for Tuesday night.

Classes for the 2019 fall semester also begin Tuesday.