The UNC System Board of Governors and UNC – Chapel Hill Board of Trustees both held special meetings on Tuesday, meeting for hours in closed session. The meetings came just over a week after the Confederate monument known as Silent Sam was pulled down on the Chapel Hill campus.
The system governors finished its meeting first on Tuesday, passing a resolution directing UNC – Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol Folt and the campus trustees to “develop and present to the Board of Governors a plan for the monument’s disposition and preservation, which should be presented to the Board of Governors by November 15, 2018.”
Folt told reporters after Tuesday’s meeting that locations across the Chapel Hill campus would be considered for a future home for the monument.
“We will look at all options, including one that features a location on campus to display the monument in a place of prominence, honor, visibility, availability and access,” Folt said, “where we can ensure public safety, ensure the monument’s preservation and place in the history of UNC and the nation.”
The options that will be reviewed by UNC, the chancellor said, would include the possibility that the statue is placed back on its pedestal on McCorkle Place.
“What we’re going to do is consider all those options as we make a plan that considers risk and longevity,” Folt said.
The chancellor said public safety “is on my mind every minute of the day.”
Folt continued, “This gives us a chance to identify a plan that can be a legal solution, which allows us to have a safe and productive campus.”
One member of the system’s Board of Governors, Thom Goolsby, has publicly said since the statue was pulled down that state law requires it be replaced within 90 days. Goolsby was the lone board member to vote against Tuesday’s resolution from the governors.
Folt said the university had been working to further contextualize the campus over the last three years and was prepared to expedite that work on the future of Silent Sam. But she said it was too early to know where else the monument might be placed.
“We have been looking at things for a long time,” Folt said, “considering all sorts of options. So, I think we’ll start moving pretty quickly, but I do think it wouldn’t be thoughtful for me to start speculating on it.”
Protesters have called for the statue’s removal for decades, with those voices growing in intensity in recent years.
Folt has said that she would prefer to move the monument to a different location in the interest of public safety. But the chancellor has maintained that a 2015 law passed by the Republican-led General Assembly that limits the ability to move “objects of remembrance” blocks her from taking that action.
The chancellor said she understands that the pace of change can be frustrating for those calling for the statue’s removal but added the university would follow the law.
“In the end, I’m going to do it in a lawful way that is sustainable,” Folt said. “And sometimes that doesn’t get done as quickly as people like.”
Board of Governors chair Harry Smith issued a statement after Tuesday’s vote. Smith said that the board would “conduct an external after action assessment and review of UNC-Chapel Hill’s preparation for and response to the August 20 protest.”
There have been 11 arrests so far in the investigation into the toppling of the statue and subsequent rally on Saturday. Another individual was charged on Tuesday.
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