Current Events > UNC teaching assistants go on strike over Confederate monument

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https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/12/07/unc-teaching-assistants-go-strike-over-confederate-monument

Several dozen teaching assistants at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill started a strike Friday, saying that they will withhold student grades as long as the university moves ahead with the idea of constructing a building to house the Confederate monument known as Silent Sam. The strike comes after classes have finished for the semester and students are preparing for final exams and normally would be soon receiving final grades.

As of early afternoon, the organizers said that they had nearly 80 teaching assistants on strike, and that they were holding back the grades of more than 2,000 students. The banner above was an early listing of the number of teaching assistants on strike and the number of students affected.

The organizers say that their move is an "action," not a strike because they are working, grading student papers and so forth, and that they are simply not handing in grades.

Silent Sam was toppled by protesters in August. Protesters used ropes to take down the statue, which was then removed by the university, setting off a debate on whether and how it would return to campus.

The action came after years of debate. As many other colleges and universities removed Confederate statues and symbols, UNC officials said that they lacked the power to remove the statue, with the campus deferring to the system, and the system board in July saying that any decision needed to come from a state agency and that the system had no plans to ask that agency to act.

On Monday, university leaders announced a plan -- widely criticized by student and faculty groups -- to spend more than $5 million on a building on campus to house Silent Sam. They said this was necessary to comply with a state law that monuments not be moved off campus, although university leaders said that they would prefer to do so.

Those organizing the strike said that the plan would amount to glorifying a monument to white supremacy and would waste money.

Many students are taking to social media to support the strike:
https://twitter.com/strikedownsam/status/1071090279107702784
https://twitter.com/Angummm_/status/1071089540633382912

Bob Blouin, executive vice chancellor and provost at Chapel Hill, sent an email to the campus objecting to the strike.

Said Blouin: "This type of action violates our universitys instructional responsibilities, which include: 1) to deliver instruction; 2) to evaluate student performance; and 3) to record/document performance and progress toward degree completion. Our students are entitled to receive their grades in a timely manner. 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. The proposed strike exposes the University and individuals who withhold grades to legal claims for the harm they cause to students."

He added: "Finally, this afternoon it came to my attention that some instructors have used their roles in the classroom to ask students to take a stand on the strike. The university has received student and parent complaints. 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."

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Reminder that this statue isn't even of a real person and was 100% put up for racist reasons.
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This is the statue of which the dedication speech for it included lines about bravely fighting to the death for the "Anglo-Saxon race" and the dedicator reminiscing about horse whipping a black woman until he had torn clear through her clothing
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ultimate reaver posted...

This is the statue of which the dedication speech for it included lines about bravely fighting to the death for the "Anglo-Saxon race" and the dedicator reminiscing about horse whipping a black woman until he had torn clear through her clothing

Bio1590 posted...

Reminder that this statue isn't even of a real person and was 100% put up for racist reasons.

The usual suspects will still defend it
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Withholding grades sounds illegal and like a good way to get expelled

Gotta fuck over hundreds of kids to make a point to someone else though I guess.
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Wtf why punish students, most of them are probably on your side anyway. That is fucked

And yea it should be illegal