Posted on 12/10/2018 6:37:54 PM PST by NKP_Vet
At least 79 teacher assistants and instructors at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill are threatening to withhold grades unless their demands in the Silent Sam controversy are met, local activists say.
A proposal by the universitys Board of Trustees to rehouse Silent Sam in a $5.3 million historical center has been met with protests from students and community activists, but a proposed strike crosses a line, UNC System Board of Governors member Marty Kotis told Carolina Journal.
When people start saying you have to believe something or were not going to release your grades unless this is done, theyre putting their personal agendas ahead of the students, Kotis said.
Kotis has called for swift action against potential strikers, including their dismissal if they indeed withhold grades.
The Board of Trustees met Monday, Dec. 3, to approve a plan to move the Confederate statue to a historical center to be built on Odum Village, where apartments for graduate students and students with children once stood. The apartments have since been demolished and the property is empty.
Now, the school wants to build a a center for history and education to house not only Silent Sam but other artifacts related to the schools long history. The center would cost $5.3 million to build, have an annual operating cost of $800,000, and feature a state-of-the-art security system.
Reactions to the proposal were swift. Activists and protesters called the proposed center a shrine to the Confederacy. Others argued the university should return the statue to McCorkle Place, where it once stood before protestors tore it down Aug. 19. It was then placed in storage.
UNC BOG member Thom Goolsby released a video Dec. 4 calling for the statues return to its pedestal. The board member called the BOTs plan cowardly.
Protesters gathered that night in opposition. Soon after, activists announced a group of teacher assistants and faculty members have joined a grade strike and promised to withhold more than 2,000 grades unless their demands are met.
The revised list of demands were posted to the activists website Dec. 6:
The Board of Trustees should withdraw the proposal to build a $5.3 million indoor location to house Silent Sam and to create a 40-person mobile force costing at least $2 million per year. Instead, the statue should remain off campus and the BOG should hold listening sessions in good faith with the community. Silent Sam should never return to the campus in any form nor shall a center to its history be built. The BOT should disclose the changes made to campus policing and withdraw the proposed security escalations. Instead of spending money on rehousing Silent Sam and funding a mobile police force, the university should direct money to building maintenance, increased wages for graduate and campus workers, abolition of fees for all graduate workers, dental insurance for graduate workers, and reduced parking fees for all workers. If the first demand is met, the participating TAs and instructors would release the grades to the university. Unless all demands are met, the group will continue to protest during the next semester.
Robert Blouin, UNC-Chapel Hill executive vice chancellor and provost, sent a letter to the deans of the school Dec. 6 saying the proposed grade strike is out of bounds and violates the universitys instructional responsibilities.
Our students are entitled to receive their grades in a timely manner, Blouin wrote. It is especially critical for the students preparing to graduate next Sunday, as well as the thousands of students whose scholarships, grants, loans, visa status, school transfers, job opportunities and military commissions may be imperiled because lack of grades threaten their eligibility.
In the letter, Blouin said he has heard complaints that some instructors have asked their students to take a stand on the strike.
Such actions have been interpreted as coercion and an exploitation of the teacher-student relationship and in fact are a violation of students First Amendment rights as well as federal law, Blouin wrote.
Kotis said the university should fire anyone participating in the grade strike. Not only that, he said they should be ineligible for rehire anywhere in the UNC System.
When you let an 80 people decide how the flagship university in the system or the entire system is run, thats not democracy. That is extortion. That is terrorism, Kotis said.
While Kotis believes people are free to protest peacefully, he contends the actions of some protesters and outside agitators have necessitated a strong response.
The UNC BOG will discuss the BOTs proposal at the Dec. 14 meeting.
The buck should stop with the UNC Board of Governors and the question will be if the Board of Governors has the guts to set clear boundaries for reasonable behavior of students and visitors to campus, Kotis said. And if we dont and were unwilling to do that, then were cowards.
They should all be fired.
What a wonderful opportunity for UNC to rid themselves of a bunch of lefty professors, instructors and staff members. Prepare pink slips and lock them out of the University.
They should be treated like the government-loving Tories were treated during the Revolutionary War.
I agree they should be fired and saddened that the chance of them being replaced by non-leftists is nil.
YEP.
It is typical prolib behavior, may demands based on their own personal opinions on matters that do not concern them which have detrimental effects to the students that do not have a say in the matter.
It is a childish attempt to FORCE the students to join their demands.
The students should sue the teachers, they have payed their money and now the teachers are intentionally not fulfilling their part of the contractual agreement after accepting their pay.
Tarheels, Tar & Feather, same diff...
Any student that was supposed to graduate this semester and can’t because his grades were withheld and as a result lost potential employment, should sue every one of his professors that withheld his grades for damages.
Time for parents to crank up the lawsuits. 10’s of thousands of dollars on yearly tuitions for this crock of bullsh**.
Sue? I believe criminal charges are in order. The legal term for what they are doing is extortion.
Besides the criminal charges, according to any college or university in America, a degree has a very real financial value, depriving students of their earned grades has a measurable impact on their future earnings, and that loss of earnings gives every single student ‘standing’ to sue.
Prosecute AND sue!
Ask OJ how that worked out for him...
Exactly. Fire them all. Make an example of them. This is exactly what should have been done in the 1960's and 1970's.
Instead, the Marxists were given the Universities.
Hmmmm. 30 students per class, how many classes does one of these mutts teach a semester 3? 5? 10?
Lets say 3. That's 90 students affected.
If each of these 90 students individually sues the professor for lost future income, mental distress, court costs and legal fees, plus whatever punitive and exemplary damages the court sees fit to impose...
Can you imagine the fallout of caving in to these protesters?
Student grades will be held for ransom regularly until someone does what Reagan did to the striking air traffic controllers.
Perhaps all university’s will start to see the absurdity in catering to these leftists, and start a much needed cleansing of their teaching staff. Return education to these supposed highly places of education and rid the country of social justice warriors.
Even better. Let all 80 of them try fighting 90 individual lawsuits with no state employee income...
I’m sure the teachers’ union would be happy to cover their court costs, and lawyers fees, of course!
How long until people with Confederate ancestors will be barred from attending UNC-CH? You can never do enough to demonstrate your opposition to slavery, after all.
All 2,000 get “A”
Meanwhile, from a Democrat dystopian 1984:
“George Orwell
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.
Who’s “Silent Sam?”
Eighty-eight professors at Duke signed a letter to support the lying stripper Crystal Magnum and falsely accuse the Duke lacrosse players of rape.
Those professors never retracted their statements. They were never punished and certainly never lost their jobs.
University administrators are scared to death of the far left liberal faculty.
Silent Sam, his history and Duke's history will die because of these New York red diaper baby professors.
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