The message was loud and clear: If the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill did not take action to remove its Confederate statue, known as Silent Sam, a group of 17 senior faculty members would do it themselves.
Everything else, however, about the supposed group has been clouded in confusion.
A letter sent anonymously to the chancellor, Carol L. Folt, on Monday claimed to be from 17 faculty members who are either full professors or hold endowed chairs. The letter stated that if there was no good-faith action from the chancellor the group would go to McCorkle Place, where cameras monitor the grounds day and night, and tear down Silent Sam at midnight on March 1.
Just as quickly as it emerged, however, the supposed group seemed to back off: On Tuesday, a Twitter account claiming to represent the group released a statement saying it would not carry out the threat, because, it asserted, Folt planned to send a letter to the governor, Roy Cooper, asking that he petition the State Historical Commission to rule on whether the university can move Silent Sam. (State law mandates that statues like Silent Sam can be moved only with that commission’s approval.)
But Joanne Peters Denny, a campus spokeswoman, told The Chronicle that was not true. “We do not know who is behind these statements and have not been in communication with any such group,” she said via email. “We don’t have anything new to share on the monument, and in fact Chancellor Folt has already been on the record many times saying she is concerned about public safety surrounding the monument, including in a letter to the Governor last fall. That position has not changed.”
On Wednesday morning, Denny said the university had been unable to verify the authenticity of the original letter and had had no contact with anyone associated with the anonymous group.
On Monday The Chronicle spoke with a UNC professor who claimed authorship of the anonymous letter to the chancellor. The faculty member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said in a phone interview. “What we asked the university to do was to make a commitment to set the wheels in motion. If they don’t do that, until we hear that, we are prepared to move” the statue.
The university’s student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, also reported that it had made contact with a member claiming to represent the group.
The professor declined to identify any of the group’s members, even on the condition that their names would not be published. “This group of senior professors does exist, and they are measured and sensible and decent people who want to do the right thing on behalf of our students,” the professor said.
Controversy has surrounded the Silent Sam monument for decades, and it intensified after some universities and cities removed their Confederate monuments following the violence in Charlottesville, Va. Numerous academic departments at Chapel Hill have written letters calling for the removal of the statue. Folt has said that she would remove the statue if she could.
Daniel J. Sherman, a history professor at UNC who helped draft a departmental letter calling for the removal of the monument, said on Tuesday that he had not been approached about the faculty letter. Michelle Brown, a student activist, said she was also unaware of the letter until she saw it on social media. And Altha Cravey, an activist and associate professor of geography, said on Wednesday she hadn’t heard about the letter either.
