Protesters at the University of North Carolina ripped down the Confederate Silent Sam statue back in August. But the base and a commemorative plaque had still remained. Until Monday, that is. On Monday, UNC Chancellor Carol Folt simultaneously announced that she was removing the base and that she was resigning, according to Campus Reform.
This comes after faculty at the school had threatened to withhold grading last month and not teach the first week of the spring semester when UNC was considering putting the statue back up inside a new building on campus.
Folt had originally said that North Carolina law prevented her from taking the statue down. Regarding the statue’s base, she said, “While I recognize that some may not agree with my decision to remove the base and tablets now, I am confident this is the right one for our community – one that will promote public safety, enable us to begin the healing process and renew our focus on our great mission.”
“One that will promote public safety.” What, like safety from those domestic terrorists who vandalized and tore down the statue in the first place? Or from those anonymous professors who threatened to take the statue down themselves back in February? Get this, though: Folt announced that she was stepping down as chancellor at the end of the semester in May, but the Board of Governors, which apparently didn’t know about the statue or resignation until Folt made them public, are now making her resign at the end of January, reported CNN.
It seems like we can’t go very long without something nutty happening at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. We kicked off the fall semester with a Confederate monument torn down by what appeared to be not students or activists, but instead savages. And just recently, we had a pro-life intern punched.
The group, Created Equal, was apparently showing abortion-related images — which can be graphic, but still, are free expression — when that woman came up and punched one of the members in the stomach and face, according to The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Police showed up and gave the woman, UNC student Jillian Alexandra Ward, a citation for misdemeanor assault. If you’ve been tuning into Campus Unmasked for a while, though, you’ll remember that this isn’t the first time pro-life activists encountered some…opposition…at college. Remember Texas State?
I talked to that guy afterward and he said he “engaged” his “rage.” Then he got the impression that I might not write too favorable of an article about him and tried to rescind permission for me to use his quotes after our interview. Um, yeah, that’s not how it works, big guy. So that was an instance of property destruction that came to mind, but there have been some other, viralassaults of pro-life activists off-campus.
But seriously, why is the disruption, the property destruction, the violence coming so often from only one side?
A University of North Carolina student court sanctioned graduate student Maya Little with a written warning and 18 hours of community service after the student smeared a mixture of what was apparently red paint and her own blood on a Confederate statue, according to Campus Reform. But for someone who’s apparently a compassionate social justice activist, Maya is oddly reluctant to do community service.
She appealed the decision and Gina Balamucki, the law student representing her, said that the vandalism “was an act of contextualization around a racist statue, which has since been taken down by the UNC chancellor herself. This was not a grave offense and this was well within the standards for the UNC community….Ms. Little does not need to learn from this experience. This experience was Maya teaching us something.”
So ideologically-driven property destruction is within the standards of UNC’s school community. Gotcha. And this act was Maya teaching us something. Wow, you’d think she’s talking about God sending the flood — I mean, what kind of moral authority does Maya Little have over us?
And let’s drop the notion that she’s some kind of innocent angel. Maya took part in another protest in December and got charged with starting a riot and assaulting a police officer.
But what makes the UNC statue story especially insane is that this wasn’t just a few dozen intolerant students. No, no, back last February, over a dozen unnamed UNC professors wrote the chancellor a letter threatening to tear down the monument themselves, reported The Daily Caller News Foundation. How brave — I guess that’s why they stayed anonymous. And then just last month, the chancellor removed the statue’s base before resigning, reported Campus Reform. When it comes to UNC, cultural Marxism is a team sport.
And keep in mind that UNC is a state institution and state law forbids the removal of these statues from public property without the approval of a state historical commission, according to The News & Observer.
Since when did the faction of inebriated hippies become the faction of lawless savages?
University of North Carolina faculty and TAs who are unhappy with the school’s decision to construct a $5 million building for a Confederate statue torn down by protesters — instead of, I guess, removing it from campus entirely — are going on a “grading strike” and withholding grades from their students in protest, reported Campus Reform. But it seems like UNC provost Bob Blouin, at least, is taking a stand.
He wrote an email to the school’s deans saying “Our students are entitled to receive their grades in a timely manner. It is especially critical for the students preparing to graduate next Sunday, as well as the thousands of students whose scholarships, grants, loans, visa status, school transfers, job opportunities, and military commissions may be imperiled because lack of grades threaten[s] their eligibility….The proposed strike exposes the University and individuals who withhold grades to legal claims for the harm they cause to students.”
Bob threatened “serious consequences” for instructors who do withhold grades. And that’s very good. You have to remember that these people aren’t the compassionate little angels they’d have you believe. No. These are single-minded ideologues who are prepared to sacrifice the scholarships, the job opportunities, and the general peace and sanity of their fellow students and faculty to get what they want, in this case, the removal of a symbol representing North Carolina’s history. Now the provost also mentioned that some UNC instructors are asking their students to take a position on the strike.
He said “such actions have been interpreted as coercion and an exploitation of the teacher-student relationship and in fact are a violation of students’ First Amendment rights as well as federal law.”
Yeah I don’t think I’d be too comfortable going on the record about the statue to someone who has control over my grade and, ergo, my future livelihood.
