University bungles Silent Sam controversy

Trustees of the University of North Carolina seem determined to make a bad, no-win situation worse. For months, the university's board and administration had dithered over what to do about "Silent Sam," the statue memorializing the UNC students who put aside their studies to serve in the Civil War. Their procrastination served to embolden the Silent Sam protesters, whose actions grew louder and more violent until a mob pulled down the 100-year-old statue in August.

They continued to delay a decision about what to do with a fallen statue, which has been removed and stored in a secret location. This week, the board announced its solution for Silent Sam's future: They want the university to build a $5 million off-campus building to house the statue and spend $800,000 a year in maintenance and operational costs to keep the building safe and intact.

Rather than solve the controversy over Silent Sam, this plan would enshrine the statue without ever settling the arguments for and against it. To opponents of the statue, the proposed building is a temple to the Confederacy and to white supremacy. To defenders of the statue, the plan leaves unresolved how the university and the state should view Silent Sam.

Opponents of the statue cite one man's racist speech at the dedication of the statue as cause for obliterating the statue, ignoring the thousands of donors who helped fund the statue as a memorial to the students who gave up their education to defend their home state and the clear intent of donors to honor not racism or the "lost cause" of the Confederacy but to honor those who died in a misbegotten war that devastated North Carolina.

The university's initial mistake in the Silent Sam controversy was to look the other way while protesters vandalized the statue and its pedestal. Had the university and the town of Chapel Hill acted swiftly to charge those protesters with destruction of public property, this destructive bent might never have snowballed to its conclusion.

Having made it clear that vandalism, destruction of public property, conspiracy, and inciting to riot would not be punished or even opposed, the university has transferred authority to the mobs. The cowering administration of the university should be replaced by leaders who are unafraid of controversy, supportive of free speech and unwilling to give in to mob rule. This prolonged indecisiveness has increased the divisiveness of this issue and made a sensible, just resolution less likely.