Taking a stand on Silent Sam

Chapel Hill has its own version of Colin Kaepernick in UNC Chancellor Carol Folt. Though instead of taking a knee, Folt took a stand — on whether Silent Sam should be allowed back on the pedestal in the university’s front yard.

Up to this point, I’d been disappointed that Folt had been so tentative in the controversy over a symbol of white supremacy. She seemed to be walking on eggshells so as not to cause indigestion among members of the General Assembly and UNC Board of Governors.

Confusion roiled around who had ultimate authority to decide whether Sam would stay or go. Gov. Roy Cooper said the chancellor could move the statue out of the public eye for safekeeping. The General Assembly said it was up to the state’s Historical Commission, but neither the BOG nor the UNC administration petitioned the commission to remove the monument.

The BOG says the governor has misinterpreted the law passed by the General Assembly in 2015 prohibiting the removal of objects of remembrance. Though the BOG has no say regarding the removal of the statue, it does have authority over the removal of the chancellor.

If Folt did not want to poke the bear by ordering the statue warehoused or at least brought inside but still on public display, she could have put up plaques around Silent Sam explaining its history and putting in context why it was put up to begin with. Instead, she bowed to the General Assembly’s view.

So Folt’s Aug. 31 letter to the community came as a welcome surprise. In the middle of explaining that the BOG had given her and UNC’s Board of Trustees a Nov. 15 deadline to deliver a plan for Silent Sam came this sentence:

“Silent Sam has a place in our history and on our campus where its history can be taught, but not at the front door of a safe, welcoming, proudly public research university.”

If she sticks adamantly to a plan that does not return the statue to its pedestal on McCorkle Place, she might find herself toppled by the BOG.

I applaud her strong stance that puts her professional well-being secondary to the humanitarian values shared by the majority at UNC and townwide. She has popular support for her position, which may or may not give her comfort should she find herself in the unemployment line.

Folt has earned my respect. It is very hard to hold firm to a stand when you’ve got a lot at stake. At the same time, it’s hard to shake up others’ lives without shaking up your own. But if we want real change in these highly charged, unyielding times, we have to take as much risk as we can bear.

Thank you, Chancellor Folt, for showing true leadership.
— Nancy Oates