One Year After Mob Tore Down ‘Silent Sam,’ Statue and Rule of Law Still in Limbo

CHAPEL HILL – The protests over ‘Silent Sam,’ the Confederate monument that stood for 100+ years on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill commemorating students and others that died in the Civil War, have been going on for decades. But it wasn’t until 2018 that university authorities and police allowed a mob of social justice warriors to come unhinged and tear down the statue. It was against the law, but that seems to matter very little. The law also holds that the statue should have been put back until the N.C. Historical Commission could decide if it could be moved, but that hasn’t seemed to matter very much either.

It has now been one year since that mob was given a green light to destroy property in support of their social justice movement. A different incoming class of freshmen, a brand new chancellor, and, still, no resolution or accountability to the ‘Silent Sam’ issue.

From the News & Observer:

“[…] Students have been protesting the Confederate monument since the Civil Rights movement. When it was illegally torn down by protesters in August 2018, the debate began over whether it should be resurrected.

A 2015 state law signed by former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory bans removing, relocating or altering monuments, memorials and other “objects of remembrance” on public property without permission from the N.C. Historical Commission. But Gov. Roy Cooper has said the law’s exceptions allow the university to remove the statue for safety reasons.

UNC trustees and former chancellor Carol Folt discussed options last fall. But the UNC System Board of Governors took control of the process in December 2018 after rejecting UNC’s proposal of building a $5.3 million history center on the edge of campus to house the statue.

Five Board of Governors members were tasked with finding a solution as part of a committee that’s been consulting with Chapel Hill trustees and senior leadership. The committee members are Jim Holmes, Darrell Allison, Wendy Murphy, Anna Nelson and Bob Rucho. Their deadline for a proposal was extended twice this spring and then indefinitely. […]”

It seems as if no one really wants to do anything. Law enforcement and the judicial system doesn’t want to hold violent and destructive protesters accountable, the faculty wants nothing to do with putting the statue back up for fear of more Leftist Mobs, and authoritative government commissions and lawmakers haven’t offered much in the way of legal clarification.

It’s understandable that many would just want this issue to go away, but just like that ‘freshman 15,’ this is likely going to hang around for a while.

A problem arises when law and order seems to buckle, even initially, in the face of woke social justice warriors. But then the authorities with jurisdiction and the rule of law at their disposal cannot even bring themselves to reestablish it in any meaningful way. Instead, we have a dithering that does more to cement the mob’s victory.

“[…] As students walk through McCorkle Place on the first day of classes Tuesday — maybe to stop and take a drink at the Old Well — they might not recognize the spot where the 8-foot-tall statue was erected. Its base has been removed, the manicured grass has grown over, and there are no police barricades protecting the space.

“Glad that my son is part of the first class @UNC in decades not to have Silent Sam looming over the campus entrance,” Geoff Green tweeted. […]”

The Leftist media will herald accounts of students attending their first classes without being ‘oppressed’ by a memorial to the confederate dead. That’s the narrative they will write, but the one that courses beneath the surface is that of the Radical Left’s relative immunity to the rule of law as long as their cause is ‘woke’ enough.

Read more of the Left’s virtual victory lap here.