On February 25, the Daily Tar Heel published a letter from an anonymous group claiming to be faculty members at UNC-Chapel Hill threatening to take down the Silent Sam statue on Carolina’s campus.

The group, which claims to be 17 senior faculty members, says they, “do not fear do not fear arrest, indeed we welcome the opportunity to demonstrate the commitment that the Carolina faculty has to the wellbeing of its students and the principles that make this university great.”

Since their initial letter to UNC Chancellor Carol Folt, many have questioned the group’s ability to covertly remove the statue from campus without anyone witnessing.

In an article by the News & Observer, UNC law professor Eric Muller was hesitant to believe his fellow faculty members could move a fridge from the lounge, much less a statue from campus.

“I said to a friend, ‘I have a very hard time picturing 17 of my colleagues, like, moving the refrigerator out of the faculty lounge,’ ” Muller told the News & Observer. “So the idea of 17 faculty members moving a multi-ton statue in the middle of the night seems a little bit hard to believe.”

The anonymous faculty group, which has been fairly active on social media, took to Twitter to respond to Muller’s fridge-moving claims.

“One of our group has moved three refrigerators out of her faculty common room over the last 20 years because her department keeps on moving buildings,” they said on Twitter. They also claim the statue weighs no more than 300-pounds, which would be an easy move for someone with prior fridge-moving experience.

Not done there, the group tweeted out an image this morning of a “simulation” of what a possibly fridge-moving situation on Carolina’s campus could look like.

Of course, the man in the image is not a faculty member at UNC-Chapel Hill.

If you google “fridge moving guy,” the first link takes you to this Youtube video of a man moving a fridge into a truck by lifting it on his back. The description of the video, made in 2008, credits him as “51 year old Dave.”

After this tweet, Muller responded on Twitter with his doubts.

We will continue to update this story with fridge-moving takes as more information arises.

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