Statue base gone; N.C. chancellor out
RALEIGH, N.C. — Hours after the remnants of a Confederate statue were removed overnight from North Carolina’s flagship public university, the state university system’s governing board pushed out the official who ordered them gone.
UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol Folt had said Monday that she would leave at the end of the school year in May, but the board of governors on Tuesday made her departure effective at the end of this month.
The removal of the statue’s marble pedestal could increase pressure on the board to give up on plans to restore the monument.
Folt ordered the base for the toppled statue known as “Silent Sam” removed because of continuing unspecified threats since she and university trustees last month proposed a new location away from the heart of the country’s oldest public university, she said.
The stone base and attached metal tablets honoring former students who fought for the slaveholding Confederacy were removed in the middle of the night. The statue has been in storage since it was pulled down in August by protesters who consider it a symbol of racism.
Folt’s move drew an angry response from board of governors Chairman Harry Smith. The board had given itself until mid-March to come up with a plan for the statue, and Smith said that timeline hasn’t changed.