CHAPEL HILL — As a group of UNC-Chapel Hill faculty members call for Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz to resign, claiming he was dishonest about how Silent Sam Confederate monument deals were negotiated, he is again insisting that he was not involved in the 2019 settlements.
The UNC-CH chapter of the American Association of University Professors sent a letter to Guskiewicz late last week criticizing him as "inexcusably ignorant or deliberately dishonest" when he told UNC faculty in December 2019 that he and university leaders "were not consulted" about a deal to deliver the statue to the Sons of Confederate Veterans and set up a $2.5 million trust for the group.
Recent revelations show that UNC-CH's vice chancellor for public affairs, Clayton Somers, was involved in some negotiations between the UNC System and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. That information only came to light after the Daily Tar Heel student newspaper sued the UNC System and its Board of Governors, forcing the system to explain the secrecy of the deals.
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Guskiewicz, in a statement to the Chapel Hill campus late last week, reiterated that he did not approve the Silent Sam deals.
"While I did not participate in the negotiations regarding any settlement, as I have previously stated, I was aware discussions were occurring through the UNC System," Guskiewicz said. "I understood and accepted the UNC System and BOG's authority to decide what to do with the monument and to negotiate, approve and implement the terms of the settlement."
Guskiewicz said the threat of the Confederate statue returning to campus was very real and that his "unwavering priority was to permanently remove the monument from campus." The $2.5 million deal to hand the monument over to the Sons of Confederate Veterans — ultimately vacated by a judge in February 2020 — was arranged by people whose "ultimate intention was to restore the safety of our campus and local community," Guskiewicz said.
Guskiewicz's message came hours after he received the letter from the American Association chapter, a group of about 70 of UNC-CH's nearly 4,000 faculty members.
In addition to concerns about the Silent Sam deal, the American Association of University Professors statement discusses other issues, such as university administrators not disclosing a warning from Orange County's health department about fall reopening plans amid the coronavirus pandemic.
"We hope that it communicates and galvanizes the complete lack of faith that the UNC community has in our current leadership," chapter president Michael Palm said.
But the chair of the overall UNC-CH faculty, Mimi Chapman, said she isn't convinced Guskiewicz lied to faculty about what he knew about the Silent Sam deals.
"I am not persuaded by the AAUP statement that anyone should be calling for a resignation at this moment," Chapman said. "This is a key moment where the chancellor has to ... provide a statement that is forthright and honest about what happened, about decisions that he made or choices he might regret.
"We all make choices in the moment that may or may not be the best ones. If that happened, I hope that he would be forthcoming about that."