Legal settlement will keep Confederate statue off UNC campus

RALEIGH - The University of North Carolina announced Wednesday that a torn-down Confederate monument won't return to campus under a legal agreement that hands over the "Silent Sam" statue to a group of Confederate descendants.

The University of North Carolina System said in a news release that a judge approved a settlement giving possession of the monument to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, who will keep the statue outside the 14 counties where there are university system campuses. Silent Sam stood in a main quad of the flagship Chapel Hill campus for more than a century before it was toppled in 2018 by protesters.

The announcement comes after the university and statewide Board of Governors spent more than a year grappling with what to do with the prominent but divisive monument, a challenging period during which the Chapel Hill chancellor resigned and the campus police chief who oversaw the response to statue's toppling retired.

Under the agreement, university officials also will create a $2.5 million private fund that can be used for expenses related to preserving the monument or potentially building a facility to house it. No state money will be used to build the fund, the news release said.

Read more: https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2019/11/27/settlement-keep-silent-sam-confederate-statue-off-unc-campus/4323097002/
(Ashewille Citizen-Times)