‘It should be brought to light.’ Daily Tar Heel sues UNC over secrecy of Silent Sam deal.
The Daily Tar Heel, UNC-Chapel Hill’s student-run newspaper, is taking legal action against the University System, its Board of Governors and individual board members over the controversial Silent Sam statue agreements.
The DTH Media Group filed a lawsuit Tuesday saying the $2.5 million settlement and additional $74,999 payment between the UNC System and the N.C. Sons of Confederate Veterans were “conceived, negotiated, approved and executed in total secrecy” in violation of North Carolina Open Meetings Law.
The group is asking the court to declare both settlements null and void.
How the Silent Sam deal was reached
On Nov. 27, the UNC System reached an agreement for UNC-CH to give the Confederate monument known as “Silent Sam” to the North Carolina Sons of Confederate Veterans and put $2.5 million in a trust for the group to care for it. The agreement was the result of a lawsuit filed by the SCV against the UNC System that same day. The announcement of the resolution came that afternoon, on the day before Thanksgiving.
The trust agreement says the money can be used for the “maintenance, display, and preservation of the bronze statue of the confederate soldier.” That could include property acquisition and construction of a new facility to house the monument, repair and renovation of the monument and facility, security costs, legal fees and “such other reasonably necessary and appropriate costs and expenses as may arise from and/or relate to the foregoing activities.”
The UNC Board of Governors approved the deal with the SCV during a private meeting of the board’s committee on university governance — after negotiating behind closed doors for months.
Five board members were tasked with determining the fate of Silent Sam, which was illegally torn down by protesters on the Chapel Hill campus in August 2018. But the five board members, who are named as defendants in the DTH complaint, never held a public meeting in the 10 months after they were formed.
In addition to the $2.5 million, the SCV also got an additional $74,999 from UNC not to display flags and banners on university campuses. That agreement was reached on Nov. 21, but the information didn’t come out until Dec. 16, when the five board members penned an op-ed explaining their decision and shedding some light on their process.
Secrecy of the settlement
In the weeks after the settlement was reached, students, faculty and alumni have marched through campus condemning it, discussed the safety threat it poses, questioned its legality and held meetings to express their outrage over the secrecy of the settlement. The Mellon Foundation pulled $1.5 million in grant money from UNC after hearing about the settlement, and a national civil rights group took legal action to get the money back. N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein and Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren also criticized the deal.
In the Daily Tar Heel’s filing, the lawyers argue that neither the Daily Tar Heel nor the public knew or could have known about either transaction until after the UNC System issued a news release that said it obtained court approval of the settlement of the lawsuit. They say neither the DTH nor the public knew or could have known about the additional $74,999 payment until the op-ed was published.
They argue that the group of board members assigned to work on the Silent Sam issue are members of a public body and therefore, they were required to meet in public, give notice of the meetings and keep full and accurate meeting minutes.
The Daily Tar Heel — and other media outlets — have not received those requested records, which they argue suggests the records do not exist.
The timing of the lawsuit and the settlement also bring the integrity of the deal into question.
The settlement was approved by the board before the lawsuit was filed. And the entire matter — including initial complaint, the university’s response and the judge’s order — was settled in less than 10 minutes in court.
The contents of the complaint, the answer and the consent judgment and the timing of their respective filings indicate that they were negotiated and drafted well in advance of their approval by the Committee on University Governance, the lawsuit says. The plaintiffs say the group of board members “did all of its work in secret and negligently or intentionally ignored, evaded and failed to comply with the Open Meetings Law.”
The DTH Media Group is asking the court to declare the actions of UNC, the board and individual members in negotiating, approving and executing the settlement of the lawsuit a violation of the law and therefore null and void.
“The University will review the claims and respond in court,” UNC System spokesman Josh Ellis said when asked for comment. “The University is committed to the spirit and purpose of the Open Meetings Act and UNC Board of Governors meetings are conducted in full accordance with all state laws.”
Why the Daily Tar Heel sued
The Daily Tar Heel had been consulting with its lawyers as information was revealed about how the settlement happened, co-editor in chief Emily Siegmund said. The decision to sue ultimately came down to accountability.
“It was kind of a no-brainer for us with how important Open Meetings Law and open records are for our profession and to holding public bodies like that accountable,” Siegmund said. “It should be brought to light, and they should be held accountable if they did break that law.”
It is a heavy burden and a financial risk for a student newspaper to take legal action. But Siegmund said they felt it was necessary with a settlement of this magnitude that has such impact on the university and community.
If they win and the settlement is declared null and void, the board would have to redo the approval process following Open Meetings Law.
“Journalists deserve that information and the public deserves that information,” Siegmund said. “And we will make sure that it is public knowledge.”
This story was originally published January 8, 2020 at 3:09 PM with the headline "‘It should be brought to light.’ Daily Tar Heel sues UNC over secrecy of Silent Sam deal.."
