UNC community disappointed, but not very surprised, after students rush Franklin Street
UNC-Chapel Hill administrators and student leaders continued to express disappointment Monday about how about 1,000 Tar Heel fans rushed Franklin Street on Saturday night, honoring a long-standing tradition over rival Duke while openly defying COVID-19 restrictions.
The UNC students involved could face disciplinary action, including being disenrolled from the university. Chapel Hill police are also working with the university to follow up with students who were identified at the event.
“As of Monday morning, Student Conduct has received more than 300 referrals since Saturday night,” Amy Johnson, UNC vice chancellor for student affairs, said Monday afternoon. “Every referral is reviewed to assess whether the reported action, if verifiable, represents a violation of the COVID-19 Community Standards. Because of the volume of referrals, we expect the review process to take some time.”
Mimi Chapman, chair of the UNC faculty, said the gathering of students, many without masks, “flies in the face of our pandemic community standards.”
In a letter to faculty, Chapman also pointed out that photos of the students showed a “definition of white privilege.”
She told The News & Observer she was disappointed that so many of the people seen out Saturday night were white students who did not appear to be considering the impact of their actions on communities of color. That includes other students, faculty and UNC staff members who don’t have a choice about whether they come to work, she said.
“It is a lack of thinking about the collective that disappoints me an awful lot,” Chapman said.
UNC has reported hundreds of COVID-19 cases among students and employees on campus since the start of the spring semester. The university began in-person classes Monday, after delaying them three weeks because of the rising numbers of COVID cases and hospitalizations across the state.
After widespread concern and the hundreds of complaints about Saturday night, the university gave faculty the option to keep classes online for another week.
About 85% of undergraduate courses are being taught remotely and 30% of UNC undergraduate students are taking one or two courses in-person this spring. Those students are required to be tested for COVID-19 twice weekly. On Monday, the university said it is not keeping track of how many professors decided to temporarily continue with remote classes.
Consequences of UNC students’ return
Despite the delayed in-person start, most students have already moved back into campus dorms and apartments in town for the spring semester.
Brett Oliverio, who owns Sup Dogs bar and restaurant on Franklin Street, said that “obviously” the Franklin Street gathering wasn’t good but that “if you bring 30,000 college students back to the university, they’re going to act like college students.”
Oliverio said Saturday night wasn’t a typical showing on Franklin Street for a Duke-Carolina rivalry game. Not only are the two teams unranked, but COVID restrictions limit the capacity at bars and restaurants and the university warned students not to participate in the tradition.
“The optics of it are bad, but it was probably about 30% of what a normal storming of Franklin Street looked like,” Oliverio said.
As students walked out of bars and restaurants after the game, some joined the crowd, others watched from a distance in face masks and some went home. The fans who stayed partied in the street for about 30 minutes before the Chapel Hill Fire Department and police broke up the scene. The crowd left the street littered with remnants of a fire and foam from a crowd-surfing mattress, the Daily Tar Heel reported.
Oliverio, who also owns a Sup Dogs in Greenville near East Carolina University’s campus, also said most UNC students seem to be taking the precautions seriously. He thinks they are generally better than students in other college towns at following mask mandates and social distancing.
Matt Gladdek, executive director at Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership, said he hasn’t heard complaints directly from businesses, but the town and university have told him they are addressing the situation.
“We’re all concerned about getting through COVID as quickly as possible, and that means taking the proper precautions,” Gladdek said.
Local residents and business owners try to keep the COVID-19 test positivity rate below 5% for Orange County, the Town of Chapel Hill said in a message Monday evening. Orange County’s COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths are among the lowest in the state, but the number of cases has been rising since January and students can help slow the community spread, officials said.
Orange County Health Director Quintana Stewart said students who celebrated after the basketball game should quarantine, monitor symptoms and get tested for COVID-19 six days following potential exposure.
Chapel Hill leaders, including the mayor and police chief, said they plan to meet with UNC officials Wednesday to discuss stronger measures to prevent UNC students from violating local and state ordinances in the future.
‘Shameful superspreader event’
The university has already been working with local authorities to investigate other complaints of UNC students partying this semester.
The student-run Instagram account @whereyallgoin_unc has been posting photos and videos in an attempt to report students to the university for COVID-19 violations. The account shared Snapchat videos from the middle of the crowd and local news reports of Saturday’s rush on Franklin Street. The account called it a “shameful superspreader event!!”
Some Tar Heel fans proudly explained their decision to flood the streets in a TV interview and defended the student celebrations on Twitter. But many others were concerned about the impact this event would have.
Raleigh Cury, a senior advisor in UNC Student Government, shared her frustration on Twitter.
“Franklin St tonight is a perfect microcosm of EVERYTHING that is wrong w UNC, w the USA. People really think their right to fun & ‘freedom’ is more important than empathy and communal responsibility. Basketball isn’t worth dying for & it’s definitely not worth killing anyone for,” Cury tweeted.
She later tweeted that student leaders warned UNC administrators about the risks of bringing students back but they didn’t listen.
“We told admin this summer that it was unrealistic & dangerous to expect all college students to behave well. Tonight isn’t surprising but the selfishness is still deeply disappointing,” Cury tweeted.
One student group also pointed out the difference between how this event was handled in comparison to other student gatherings and protests.
“Tonight we have no words of condemnation, but we instead want to voice our unyielding support to the Black and Brown student activists and advocates that have been fighting against the institution of white supremacy and privilege that was so evident tonight on Franklin St.,” the UNC Commission on Campus Equality & Student Equity tweeted.
“If this had been a BLM protest or a demonstration against the existence of racism within the University there would have been many safety plans in place and @UNCPolice and CHPD would have made a dozen arrests,” the group tweeted. “Activists your work is important now more than ever. Stand strong!”
Potential disciplinary action
Local and university authorities are investigating the sea of fans that flooded the intersection of Columbia Street and Franklin Street. State and local mandates require individuals to wear face masks in public, and large gatherings are prohibited.
Ran Northam, the interim communication manager for the Town of Chapel Hill, said officials would review the crowd as any other possible COVID-19 violation. Northam said this is a much more serious case than a house party because of the number of people involved.
The streets were not blocked off by police ahead of time and they aren’t typically closed for these rivalry basketball games. But police respond to the events as they are happening to protect those in attendance, Northam said.
There was one person arrested Saturday for drunk and disruptive behavior, underage drinking and resisting officers, according to Northam. Individuals can face jail time or up to $1,000 fines for violation state or local COVID-19 rules, but charges are reserved for repeat violators and glaring violations of the crowd limitations, according to the Town of Chapel Hill.
Students can also face disciplinary action through the university student affairs office. UNC students can be disenrolled for the semester if they are found responsible for violating university policies like not wearing face masks or attending large social gatherings.
For each reported violation, a hearing officer will assess the report, review the alleged violations and meet with the student. If found responsible, students could face consequences including a warning, restricted access to campus facilities, removal from housing and disenrollment.
Johnson said UNC wants students to report incidents to the police or student conduct rather than on social media. It does not monitor social media accounts for violations, she said.
UNC has been tracking potential COVID-19 Community Standards Violations and said it received 179 reports between Nov. 1, 2020 and Jan. 31, 2021.
The university has reported 366 COVID cases among students and employees who’ve been tested on campus since January 2021, as of Feb. 7. All undergraduate students living on campus or in Chapel Hill or Carrboro must get tested at least once a week, regardless of whether their classes are online or in-person.
The university has administered more than 46,000 tests, and most cases appear to be off campus, with four clusters of about two dozen cases in dorms.
Duke and UNC basketball will face off again
Duke and Carolina men’s basketball teams are scheduled to meet again on March 6, this time in Chapel Hill. Chapman said the university needs to do more to engage students so that this doesn’t happen again.
“As a campus, we probably need to get better and more creative about how we give students the joyful outlet or collective experience they crave,” Chapman said.
She pointed out that this is not just a student problem and what happened Saturday isn’t the only event that’s contributing to the spread of coronavirus.
“It is happening at all sectors of society,” Chapman said. “People are really tired, and some people just aren’t onboard with what we need to be doing.”
This story was originally published February 8, 2021 at 3:36 PM with the headline "UNC community disappointed, but not very surprised, after students rush Franklin Street."
