Another Failed Solution to Silent Sam: Judge Overturns Settlement with SCV
The base of the statute after it was painted red by activist Maya Little, and before being toppled in August 2018 (Source)
Silent Sam, a statue of an armed Confederate soldier that once stood on UNC’s campus, has sparked anything but silence since August 2018, when students tore it down during a protest. Since then, the university has been indecisive on the next steps it should take regarding the statue’s remains, if it should continue to exist, and its final resting place, so to speak. A previous proposal to build a $5.3 million center to house the statue on campus was rejected after further protests by students, and former Chancellor Carol Folt resigned shortly after. In November 2019, the UNC Board of Governors announced that the monument would be entrusted to the NC Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), along with establishing a $2.5 million trust, using university funds, to fund the “maintenance, display, and preservation” of the statue, as well as “other reasonably necessary and appropriate costs” related to the upkeep of the statue. This decision was reached as the result of a settlement on behalf of the university in response to a suit filed by SCV citing a 2015 law that prohibited removing Confederate monuments from public property.
Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour originally approved of the settlement on Nov. 27, 2019, but after UNC students and faculty filed a legal challenge, the same judge reconsidered, officially overturning the deal on Feb. 12, on the basis of SCV’s lack of standing to bring the suit to the UNC Board of Governors in the first place. In essence, the UNC Board of Governors violated the law to pay out a third party, in hopes that this move would be a solution.
Suspicion was raised by the fact that SCV and the Board of Governors had in fact decided upon the deal before the suit was even filed. It soon became clear that the suit was just a means to an end. This was corroborated by a leaked email from SCV leader Kevin Stone to members, in which Stone admits that the suit had “zero chance of winning,” but that the SCV’s “legal action [was] immediately met with an offer from [the Board of Governors] to settle.” Furthermore, Stone elaborates that “during this whole time, [the SCV was] working directly with [the Board of Governors] and for the honour of our [the Confederate group’s “ancestors”].” Stone labeled the settlement “a major strategic victory.” The email was leaked by anonymous SCV members, who felt that the display of the monument would express “racist overtones” with which they did not agree.
Furthermore, the Board of Governors had already paid the SCV $74,999 not to display their flags and banners on campus, on top of the $2.5 million trust. This amount was intentional, as it was just under the $75,000 threshold that would require the payment to be reviewed by N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein. Durham attorney Greg Dourcette, who has done extensive investigation of the settlement to support the challenge filed against it, described the payment as a “mafia shakedown.”
The settlement was unpopular from the outset, with a UNC history professor specializing in the American South and Civil War remarking that the Board of Governors “obviously got very, very poor advice” on how such a payout would be received by the general public. SCV leader Stone has said, in response to these criticisms, that “the SCV is not a white supremacist group”—as some critics of the settlement have pointed out—“and just because some people who disagree with us call us that does not make us one.” However, some members of the SCV have accused the organization of harboring white supremacist sects that support hate groups, contributing to the backlash against the support the organization has received from UNC.
There is uncertainty regarding what either group will do next. The SCV has yet to respond to the overturning of the deal. The Board of Governors’ lawyer, Ripley Rand, said that the board “will go back to work to find a lasting and lawful solution to the dispute over the monument.” Rand later requested that the judge send a series of stipulations for what the SCV should do with the statue, and officially order the dissolution of the trust, but it is still up to the University to decide what the statue’s ultimate fate will be. It has yet to be seen what that will be, and if it will satisfy the UNC student body and faculty, but given the previous record of stalling and unpopular decisions, it is unlikely that a permanent decision will be reached soon.