Judge gives deadline for return of Silent Sam statue and money to UNC system
The North Carolina Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans has 45 days to return the Silent Sam Confederate monument to the UNC System, a judge ordered Thursday.
The group, known as SCV, must also return the remaining balance of the $2.5 million trust fund set up for the statue within 10 days.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour filed his written order Thursday dismissing the controversial case between the SCV and the UNC System and the Board of Governors and voiding the settlement.
The deal, negotiated behind closed doors, was originally settled in November 2019 and gave the SCV ownership of the statue and access to $2.5 million to preserve and display it.
Baddour had dismissed the lawsuit and voided the settlement in court last week and determined the SCV lacked the legal standing to sue, but he did not give his reasoning at the time.
Thursday’s order comes a few days after Ripley Rand, the UNC System’s attorney, wrote Baddour asking for help in getting Silent Sam back and seeking advice on next steps.
Why was the Silent Sam case dismissed and the settlement voided?
Baddour’s written order filed Thursday says the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), which raised funds for the Silent Sam statue and gifted it to UNC-Chapel Hill, no longer owned the statue once it was put on campus in 1913.
In order to pursue this lawsuit, the SCV obtained rights from the modern United Daughters of the Confederacy group to establish ownership of the statue. But there’s no evidence that the two UDC groups are directly related, according to the written order.
Baddour wrote that the SCV lacked the standing to bring the lawsuit against the UNC System because it did not establish that the modern UDC ever owned the statue and therefore, the SCV had no legal claim to it.
The UNC System owns Silent Sam and will again need to figure out what to do with the confederate soldier statue that was toppled by students in August 2018.
What happens to the Silent Sam statue?
Baddour ordered that the SCV must return Silent Sam to the UNC system within 45 days, ensuring it is safely transported and delivered.
They will need to notify the court if they can’t agree on a plan to transfer the property within 30 days.
The Board of Governors will “work to find a lasting and lawful solution to the dispute over the monument,” Rand said in a statement after the hearing last week.
He said their goals in deciding what to do with the Confederate monument are “to protect public safety of the University community, restore normality to campus, and be compliant with the Monument Law.”
The 2015 monuments law bans removing, relocating or altering monuments, memorials and other “objects of remembrance” on public property without permission from the N.C. Historical Commission.
What happens to the money?
The trustee of the $2.5 million fund was ordered to provide the court with an accounting of any money spent from the trust within 10 days. That includes the amount, date and payee of each transaction as well as any outstanding payments.
If there are no “unsatisfied obligations,” then the trustee is ordered to return the remaining balance to the UNC System within 10 days, the order states.
Baddour said the trustee can hold money in the trust for those outstanding payments and “seek leave of the Court before taking any action or disbursing reserved funds.”
SCV attorney Boyd Sturges said the SCV has already used $52,000 from the trust for his fees as an attorney in this case.
Once the accounting of all payments is sent to the court, the trust will be dissolved.
The Board of Governors is scheduled to meet Feb. 21 in Chapel Hill. The Silent Sam statue is not currently on the agenda.
