Tag: Silent Sam

Commentary: University of North Carolina’s Leadership Crisis Exposes Academia’s Feckless Mindset

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Carol Folt’s tenure as chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill came to an abrupt end last week, thanks to her failure to grasp political realities and her defiant support of the school’s radical social justice crowd. She challenged the system’s governing body, the Board of Governors, by having the pedestal of the Civil War memorial known as “Silent Sam” removed. In response, the Governors gave her a couple of weeks to clean out her desk instead of letting her finish the spring semester as she intended. It should hardly surprise anybody that Folt ran afoul of the university system’s ultimate authority to promote the social justice agenda. After all, she has always sided with the radical diversity agenda against more prudent interests; there is ample evidence from her days as provost and interim president at Dartmouth College as well as her time at UNC. Once the Confederate statue known as Silent Sam was pulled down by a howling mob of protesters in August 2018, Folt’s end was inevitable. It was obvious that the mob’s action had official imprimatur, with police from the campus and the city of Chapel Hill “standing down” while the bolts connecting the…

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North Carolina College Fires Employee Early After She Removed Silent Sam Statue

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by Neetu Chandak   The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s chancellor was asked to step down in her role earlier than expected after making the swift decision to remove leftovers of the school’s Silent Sam statue. Carol Folt planned to resign as the school’s chancellor after commencement in May, according to the letter Monday. But the Board of Governors wanted Folt to resign earlier after she ordered for the removal of the Confederate statue’s plaque and base without consulting others, Inside Higher Ed reported Wednesday. The board held a private meeting with Folt Tuesday afternoon and accepted her resignation date starting Jan. 31. “While I’m disappointed by the Board of Governors’ timeline, I have truly loved my almost six years at Carolina,” Folt said in a statement posted on Twitter Tuesday. Folt had cranes and crews remove the leftovers of the statue at night, hours after her resignation announcement. Gone, baby gone. Silent Sam’s pedestal is nowhere to be seen on @UNC campus. #silentsam reporting for @CarolinaJournal pic.twitter.com/Ta5bz5v9vz — Kari Lynn Travis (@KariLynnTravis) January 15, 2019 “You know, it’s a bit stunning based on how this has gone, that UNC Chapel Hill felt they needed to take this…

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North Carolina Mayor Threatens Legal Action If Group Fails to Remove Confederate Statue

Anthony Gockowski

A North Carolina mayor is threatening legal action unless a women’s historical society removes a statue of a Confederate soldier that it owns in downtown Winston-Salem. During a Tuesday event, Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines announced that City Attorney Angela Carmon sent a letter to the Daughters of the Confederacy organization asking that it relocate its statue. According to the Winston-Salem Journal, the city is asking the group to move the statue from its current downtown location to Salem Cemetery, where 36 Confederate soldiers are buried. Joines and Carmon are citing vandalism of the statue as reason for its removal, saying that the city cannot provide sufficient security. The statue was vandalized twice in 2018, most recently on Christmas Day when vandals spray-painted “cowards and traitors” on the base of the statue. “We’ve already had two instances of vandalism and, with the potential for violence, it is [Carmon’s] belief that the statue does create a public nuisance and therefore we are directing the Daughters of the Confederacy to remove it, and if they don’t, we’re prepared to file legal action to achieve that removal,” Joines told the Journal Tuesday. The Daughters of the Confederacy previously declined to remove the statue, but Joines…

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Commentary: Blackmail Added to Mob Rule on Campus Activists’ Resumes

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by Jay Schalin   The proper term for the actions of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduate student assistants and instructors threatening to withhold grades unless Silent Sam—a statue of a Confederate soldier who was pulled off his pedestal by a mob of activists in August—is removed from campus is not “strike,” as the activists claim. It is “blackmail.” Blackmail is when one individual or group holds information over another’s head to force them to do their bidding. Granted, this one has a slight twist; usually, blackmail consists of somebody having damaging information that will humiliate or damage their victim unless they submit. This time, the blackmailers—and only the blackmailers—have information that is the administration’s and students’ right to know. They have declared that the students and administration will not receive the grades unless they do what the graduate students want. According to a Chronicle of Higher Education article, 79 teaching assistants and instructors have pledged to withhold more than 2,000 final grades. The activists’ demands, along with the removal of the statue, include: “Changes to a plan for increased campus security” “Increased wages for graduate and campus workers, the majority of whom make less than a…

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