A few days before the start of school in August 2018, protestors at UNC-Chapel Hill tore down the statue of Silent Sam, a memorial to soldiers who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. In an editorial supporting the students’ actions, Technician’s editorial board noted that a law passed in 2015 prohibited removal or relocation of monuments, except to “a site of similar prominence, honor, visibility, availability, and access that are within the boundaries of the jurisdiction from which it was relocated.”

The base and plaques of the monument were recently removed by outgoing UNC Chancellor Carol Folt, followed by the UNC Board of Governors (BOG) rushing her resignation, effective Jan. 31.

This controversy has rumbled on for five months, and, with the BOG slated to continue deliberating the monument’s future, there is no end in sight. Yet this conflict might have been avoided if not for the 2015 law which greatly constrains what universities are allowed to do with these monuments despite their impact on students of color. Although NC State does not have any monuments impacted by this law, a number of them are scattered about downtown Raleigh.

Now that the state GOP has lost its supermajority in the General Assembly, it should collaborate with Democrats to work out a process which allows schools greater autonomy in dealing with these divisive memorials rather than requiring such drastic measures, as was the case with Silent Sam.

The law in question never uses the word “Confederate,” but its context and wording clearly establish an intention to tie the hands of any who oppose the message spread by honoring those who fought to preserve slavery.

Following a 2015 shooting in a black church in Charleston, S.C., numerous calls sprung up to remove Confederate monuments across the South. Shortly thereafter, the state legislature passed the law, and then-Gov. Pat McCrory signed it.

Technically, the law seems to permit the removal of monuments with the approval of the North Carolina Historical Commission. However, in August 2018, that board cited the law, saying that it could not approve requests to remove three confederate statues at the Capitol, just a few blocks from NC State’s campus. This means that other, similar applications are unlikely to succeed until the law is changed.

The law specifically defines protected “objects of remembrance” to include “a monument, memorial, plaque, statue, marker, or display of a permanent character that commemorates an event, a person, or military service that is part of North Carolina’s history.” The references to military service and history, while applicable to all past wars, are particularly important to Confederate monuments, which have seen numerous arguments about their removal.

The law also specifically prohibits relocation to “a museum, cemetery, or mausoleum unless it was originally placed at such a location.” These are common alternatives offered to completely removing confederate monuments, especially the museum option, which aims to preserve these monuments as part of the history of North Carolina, rather than continue to actively honor the state’s role in slavery and the Confederacy.

By barring these potential compromises from even being considered, the law clearly establishes that history was less important to the writers than preventing institutions which oppose the message sent by these statues from doing anything to preserve their values. In doing so, it undermines the authority of universities like UNC to create a safe and productive academic environment because of the desires of people who don’t live on campus to protect these monuments.

This law defends confederate monuments, but, more than that, it undermines the capacity of local communities to decide for themselves what messages they want to send about their values. The legislature overstepped its bounds in passing this law, and, for the sake of North Carolina’s future, it must be repealed.