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In this Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2017 file photo, police surround the "Silent Sam" Confederate monument during a protest to remove the statue at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File)
The Daily NewsTurns out the secret deal the UNC System Board of Governors worked out with a Confederate group on the Silent Sam statue was not only sneaky, tone-def and shameful, but illegal, too.
An Orange County judge overturned the decision on Wednesday. Judge Allen Baddour ruled that the state division of the Sons of Confederates Veteran had no standing to settle with the UNC System over Sam. The board announced the deal the day before Thanksgiving. In a news release, it announced it had decided to give the controversial Confederate monument to the Sons, along with a $2.5 million endowment to take care of it.
The arrangement was dubious from the beginning.
The endowment, as we wrote in December, would permanently tie our state’s highest system of education to a defiant, ahistorical and racist interpretation of history. To boot, the board was handing over funds to a questionable group with a record of generating controversy.
The board in its decision had ignored months of public debate over the rebel monument. After its secret negotiations with the Sons it came up with a solution that exactly nobody had publicly espoused. Then it emerged that the lawsuit in which the Sons had sued the university was filed AFTER the press conference announcing the settlement. It gave the (accurate) impression that the “fix was in.”
We applaud students and faculty in the UNC-Chapel Hill community for their role in bringing about the judge’s decision on Wednesday. They have proved integral in unraveling the shady deal.
For starters, The Daily Tar Heel, a student-run newspaper, has been on the forefront of breaking news and writing stories with more of the ugly details about the settlement. Among those details: The board gave almost $75,000 to the Sons a week prior to the settlement, for the group’s promise it would refrain from displaying rebel flags or other provocative displays on UNC campuses for the next five years.
The student paper also reported on the gleeful letter that Kevin Stone, leader of the state Sons of Confederate Veterans, sent out to members: “What we have accomplished is something that I never dreamed we could accomplish in a thousand years, and all at the expense of the University itself.”
Based on comments since the judge’s ruling, both the Board of Governors and the Sons are giving up on their cozy arrangement, and the board will return to the drawing board. Unfortunately, the members’ credibility on this issue is about shot, after the debacle some are calling “silent sham.”
This article originally appeared on The Daily News: Editorial: Judge rightly overturns deal on Silent Sam
