UNC is not petitioning the North Carolina Historical Commission to relocate the monument known as Silent Sam when the state body meets on Friday.
Protesters have been calling for the removal of the Confederate monument on UNC’s campus since a rally against the statue on the first day of classes in late August. Some of those protesters remained at the statue in rotating groups for more than a week after the initial protest. UNC Police eventually removed furniture and other items that had been brought to assist the protesters in their stated goal of having a presence at the statue 24 hours per day.
The focus on Silent Sam and other Confederate monuments intensified after a counter protester was killed at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last month.
UNC chancellor Carol Folt has repeatedly said that she would order the statue be removed, if she felt the university had the authority to do so. But Folt has maintained a 2015 law passed by the Republican-led General Assembly prevents her from doing so.
That law directs any petitions to remove “Objects of Remembrance” from state grounds to the North Carolina Historical Commission. That body is set to meet on Friday and will be discussing the removal of some of these monuments in North Carolina, but Silent Sam is not on the agenda.
UNC confirmed to WCHL on Wednesday that university officials did not petition the state Historical Commission regarding Silent Sam.
UNC spokesperson Joanne Peters Denny issued a statement to WCHL saying:
“We understand that the Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Administration has filed a petition with the North Carolina Historical Commission to relocate three state monuments located on the State Capitol grounds. We believe that this is the first time that the commission will be considering such a petition since the General Assembly amended the law in 2015. We are carefully following these proceedings, which we hope will shed light on what standards the commission will be using to evaluate such matters. Based on consultations with legal counsel at both UNC-Chapel Hill and General Administration, it is clear that neither UNC-Chapel Hill nor the UNC system have the authority to unilaterally remove the Silent Sam statue. Any suggestion that we have unilateral authority is inaccurate.”
Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger wrote to Folt last month asking that the chancellor use the commission as a way to work toward the removal of Silent Sam.
Protest organizers have also called for a boycott of some commerce on the campus.
If UNC takes into account the result of Friday’s commission meeting, university officials will have to wait until a subsequent petition can be heard by the body. The North Carolina Historical Commission meets “two to four times per year,” according to its website.
Friday’s meeting is schedule for 10 o’clock in the morning at the State Library Building in Raleigh.
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