It is time for the University of North Carolina to release its grip on the past and remove Silent Sam, the statue memorializing UNC alumni who fell serving in the Confederate army, erected by UNC alumni and the Daughters of the Confederacy in 1913. 

As the flagship public university and the oldest public university in the country, this statue is a brazen reminder that racism is still institutionalized and endemic in public educational system. We implore the Board of Trustees and the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina to acknowledge the wrongs of its past, remove Silent Sam, and declare that The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is free from hate.