UNC Student Faces Possible Expulsion over Confederate Statue Protest

And in North Carolina, UNC doctoral student Maya Little has been charged with property destruction and faces possible expulsion for pouring red ink and her own blood on the university’s “Silent Sam” statue, which was erected in 1913 to honor Confederate soldiers. In a statement, Maya Little noted that students who had tossed paint on the same statue in the past to celebrate sports victories did not face criminal charges. She wrote, “At UNC, dousing the monument in paint in the name of basketball is deemed a pastime while doing the same to contextualize and fight racism is a crime. Revealing the racist violence upon which Sam was built—exposing a truth the university would like to keep covered—could result in my expulsion.” An online petition demanding that the charges against Maya Little be dropped has been signed by nearly 4,000 people.