In front of a crowded room in the Carolina Union, members of UNC’s Undergraduate Student Senate cast votes on two monumental issues facing UNC Tuesday night.
The senate voted 9-1 to send a letter encouraging the removal of Silent Sam. A unanimous vote approved the decision to send a letter encouraging the protection of the UNC Center for Civil Rights.
Citing common sentiment among the student body, as well as the statue’s historical implications, Tarik J. Woods, rules and judiciary committee chair, helped spearhead a letter supporting the removal of Silent Sam.
“It needs to be taken down because it’s a threat to public safety for students,” Woods said. “It represents traitors to the United States and should not be on the forefront of our campus.”
The lone dissenting vote against the letter supporting the removal of Silent Sam came from Rachel Augustine, finance committee chair. While Augustine agrees with the sentiments of those supporting the statue’s removal, she is in favor of solutions that she sees as more helpful in the long term.
“I would rather see a second statue that’s taller than Silent Sam that really celebrates the black Americans that helped make our campus,” Augustine said.
The other letter hopes to encourage those in power to allow the UNC Center for Civil Rights to continue to take on law cases. Speaker of the Undergraduate Senate Katharine Shriver saw the center’s removal as a threat to UNC’s reputation.
“We are a top 20 law school across the United States," Shriver said. "If the Board of Governors takes away the UNC Center for Civil Rights, this will seriously hurt not only graduate students, but the reputation that UNC has across the United States of America."
