UNC administrator behind Silent Sam deal set to become judge under new bill
The UNC-Chapel Hill administrator who helped orchestrate the university’s settlement with the Sons of Confederate Veterans over the Silent Sam statue appears poised to become a Superior Court judge under a bill lawmakers passed Wednesday.
In the bill, which includes dozens of board and judge appointments across the state, House Speaker Tim Moore tapped Clayton Somers, Moore’s former chief of staff, to become a special Superior Court judge with a term expiring in 2031.
Though most Superior Court judges are elected by voters, special Superior Court judges have typically been appointed by the governor. The state budget bill, passed last month, included a provision to allow the appointment of 10 additional special Superior Court judge positions, with the General Assembly making those appointments. The positions, including Somers’, are effective beginning Jan. 1, 2024.
The budget also made a change that will allow special Superior Court judges to serve on panels that review the validity of laws passed by the General Assembly when those laws are challenged in court. Those panels are appointed by North Carolina’s chief justice, currently Paul Newby, a Republican.
Somers served as Moore’s chief of staff from 2015 to 2017 before becoming secretary of the university and vice chancellor of public affairs at UNC. Former UNC Chancellor Carol Folt created that role in 2017, saying at the time that it would improve the university’s relations with state and federal government.
Somers moved to an administrative position in the university’s athletics department last year. UNC spokesperson Chloe McCotter confirmed Thursday that Somers is still employed in that role. The position was newly created when he filled it. The vice chancellor role Somers left to fill the athletics position no longer exists.
The Silent Sam deal
In his role as vice chancellor, Somers was part of the group that brokered a controversial deal between the UNC System and the North Carolina chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans over Silent Sam, the Confederate monument that stood on the UNC campus for more than 100 years before protesters tore it down in 2018.
The deal, which was orchestrated behind closed doors and was later overturned by a judge, first involved the UNC System paying SCV $74,999 to discourage the group from suing the university and restrict the group from holding events on the system’s campuses, The N&O previously reported. Somers was one of just a handful of people in attendance at the November 2019 meeting in which the settlement was made.
SCV used the money to obtain the rights to the statue from the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which was responsible for constructing the monument on campus in the early 1900s. After the rights issue was resolved, The N&O reported, a UNC Board of Governors committee approved a settlement agreement that would have given SCV the statue and access to a $2.5 million trust for costs related to “the care and preservation” of the monument.
“Clayton worked directly with members of the Board of Governors on the disposition of the monument and not on my behalf,” Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz told the Daily Tar Heel in 2021.
Judge Allen Baddour, who originally approved the settlement, voided the agreement and dismissed the case three months later.
Athletics position
Somers is listed in the UNC System salary database with the title of “administrative director” and a salary of $362,874.
UNC told The N&O last year that Somers was serving on Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham’s leadership team and assisting “as needed” on special projects, department risk management issues and name, image and likeness strategy.
Guskiewicz sent a message to university leadership in January 2022 saying Somers had accepted a fixed term position in athletics as “special adviser to the athletic director.”
Somers served as general counsel for the North Carolina High School Athletic Association from 2012 to 2014 and executive director of the North Carolina Turnpike Authority in 2014, according to his LinkedIn profile. He holds a law degree from Wake Forest University.
This story was originally published October 25, 2023 at 2:01 PM with the headline "UNC administrator behind Silent Sam deal set to become judge under new bill."
