Opinion: Administrators shouldn’t run from real opinions

Some things just don’t require a consensus.

There’s no need to hem and haw over whether the University should rename a building that makes students feel unsafe. When students are standing in the middle of campus with a noose around their neck, then that’s enough. That means it’s time to act.

When a student asks why this University has never expelled anyone for rape, the chancellor shouldn’t be allowed to pass the microphone to another panelist before answering that question herself.

In a recent interview with The Daily Tar Heel, Chancellor Carol Folt described her leadership style as “consensus-based” and urged students to accept that the change they demand will not always occur on their timeline.

This brings to mind a passage from Jonathan Kozol’s book “Death at an Early Age.”

“The slowness of change is always respectable and reasonable in the eyes of the ones who are only watching,” he wrote. “It is a different matter for the ones who are in pain.”

On principle, Folt seems to believe she is most effective as an apolitical actor, one who avoids dominating conversations out of respect for less powerful voices.

We respect this as a principle and as a legitimate approach to university governance, but we believe this school’s biggest problems require a strong stance when no consensus can be established or when a “consensus” continues to ignore minority voices.

Such seems to be the case with respect to issues of racial tension on campus. These problems must be met and fought on the political battlefields where they are taking place.

In the interview, she contrasted the coalition of groups involved with the effort to rename Saunders Hall with the Sierra Student Coalition, which she lauded as understanding the time scale on which institutional change must take place.

But the demands of the Sierra Student Coalition and discussions of University finances cannot be compared to requests for a campus that does not actively honor white supremacists.

When students with reasonable and concrete demands say they feel unsafe or discriminated against by the University, it is not enough to tell them to take the long view and wait.

Her approach to leadership has the perhaps unintentional benefit of protecting her from blame when things don’t go the University’s way. As long as she doesn’t stick her neck out for students, she knows she won’t be seen as having failed.

Folt is a careful and deliberate leader, and we admire her for that. But we hope that she will take the plunge when circumstances require some sacrifice of political capital.

Because some things just don’t require a consensus.