With a Silent Sam protest planned, UNC board will hold its meeting over the phone
Amid continued outrage over the UNC System’s $2.5 million Silent Sam settlement with the N.C. Sons of Confederate Veterans, the system’s governing board will meet by conference call — and not in person — for its regularly scheduled meeting Friday.
The board’s Personnel and Tenure committee also will discuss an “executive personnel matter” in closed session, which could be related to the selection of a permanent UNC-Chapel Hill chancellor. Kevin Guskiewicz has been serving in the role on an interim basis for nearly a year and has expressed interest in filling the post permanently.
UNC-CH students, faculty and community activist groups planned a protest at the meeting Friday to confront board members about the “$2.5 million payout to white supremacy.”
Late last month, the UNC System reached an agreement with the Confederate group over the fate of Silent Sam, the Confederate statue that stood on the Chapel Hill campus before it was torn down by protesters in 2018. UNC gave the statue to the Confederate group, along with $2.5 million to transport, preserve and display the monument.
The UNC System sent a notice Tuesday announcing the phone meeting, but spokesman Jason Tyson said the planned protest was not a factor or a concern in the scheduling of the meeting. The board decided that its December meeting would be by conference call at the previous BOG meeting in November.
Still, the protest organizers are calling the board members “absolute kkkowards” for not facing them.
“They won’t get rid of us that easily,” the group Defend UNC said in a statement Tuesday. “We will still be there to demand that the Board of Governors retract their $2.5 million payout to white supremacy; pay reparations to Black students, staff, and faculty; and resign their positions effective immediately.”
The Silent Sam settlement is not on the board’s agenda for the “special session,” but the meeting will include a closed session where UNC System Interim President Bill Roper, UNC System General Counsel Tom Shanahan, and the Personnel and Tenure committee will give reports.
The Budget and Finance, University Governance and Personnel and Tenure committees will meet on Thursday prior to the full board meeting.
UNC seeks permanent chancellor
Guskiewicz has been interim chancellor since February, replacing Carol Folt, who left her job after ordering the removal of the final pieces of the Silent Sam monument from campus.
Guskiewicz has always said that he did not want the Confederate statue to return to campus. He told the campus community he was pleased this settlement ensures it will not be coming back to Chapel Hill.
But faculty raised strong concerns and disappointment in Guskiewicz’s response to the deal and his failure to condemn the decision to make UNC pay the Confederate heritage group.
Students, faculty and alumni have marched through campus and held intense meetings in the past week expressing their pain, anger and despair over the terms and secrecy of the settlement.
Some say it poses a threat to campus safety, and lawyers have questioned the legality of the deal.
The University Governance committee, which approved the Silent Sam settlement deal last month, will hold another closed session to approve the minutes from that Nov. 27 meeting and hear a legal affairs report from Shanahan.
This story was originally published December 10, 2019 at 2:59 PM.
