UNC and Silent Sam: The uncertain future of a great university

The moral, cultural, legal, academic and, ultimately, constitutional clash long brewing between the Board of Governors and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has gone straight over the cliff. And the future of the nation’s first public university is in direct peril.

The BOG just settled one of the most implausible lawsuits ever filed in an American court by giving the Silent Sam statue to a white supremacy group and funneling them $2.5 million to ensure their gleeful cooperation. The “commander” of the Confederate organization, Kevin Stone, said he never “dreamed in a thousand years” of such a “major strategic victory.”

The BOG then handed the entire bill to an un-consulted, but habitually powerless and compliant campus. Our new chancellor, Kevin Guskiewicz, enthusiastically praised the “resolution” and then explained we must “confront” race discrimination anywhere we find it. Hark the sound.

Commander Stone announced the money would be used “to vindicate the cause for which (the Confederate soldier) fought.” Such sentiments may be congenial to some in the all white Republican caucuses of the N.C. house and senate. But they are alien and horrific to every university community in the nation.

UNC Faculty Chair Lloyd Kramer protested that his colleagues are furious to see “much needed funds go to an organization that tells lies about the Civil War and promotes the legacy of white supremacy in our state.” Ted Shaw expressed disdain for a Board that could demand millions in tribute to a treasonous, violent rebellion meant to assure slavery but couldn’t tolerate the presence of a meaningful civil rights center on campus. Faculty members, especially those of color, spoke movingly of intense and affection-ending disappointment with UNC. It may surprise the BOG to learn you can’t recruit world class faculty and students from the membership rolls of the Ku Klux Klan.

In meetings with the faculty, Chancellor Guskiewicz explained he would have viewed the return of the statue to campus as “immoral.” When asked if the decision to give $2.5 million to the Sons of the was the same, he stuttered, hedged and fell silent. Some confrontation. Once again, we watched our campus leader deploy the Chapel Hill mute crouch. Suddenly an assumedly normal person is prohibited from saying even the obvious truth, so great is the fear of being swallowed by the beast. The silence cost him any claim to leadership. But it gained him a job.

The Chancellor and Provost also explained that the BOG had taken control of the monument resolution. UNC-Chapel Hill was not involved in the negotiations with the white supremacists, was not consulted about the agreement, or asked to approve it. It is not even a party to the “settlement.” It just has to pay the tab.

Perhaps that is technically legal. Like it may be technically legal for Donald Trump to cage kids at the border. But it is a radical abuse of authority. And it will sink any major university’s fortunes. Why would a donor give money to a school, no matter how much she may love it, if a radical, meddling and demonstrably incompetent central governing board can simply take away millions of dollars of its crucial resources on a whim? There could be no more potently poisoned a pill for a capital campaign. Oddly, alumni seek excellence in their alma maters. Not vicious and ahistorical right-wing purity.

It can take centuries to build a great university. The BOG is showing you can kill one in months.

This story was originally published December 16, 2019 at 5:00 AM with the headline "UNC and Silent Sam: The uncertain future of a great university."