THREAD: Why weren’t faculty experts @UNC consulted on Silent Sam?
Thoughts on the #BOT’s proposal to install the Confederate monument on campus @UNC in a new University History & Education Center pic.twitter.com/vNc9Nsmmgj

— John Bowles (@JPBowles) December 4, 2018

Amid a week of standoffs between activists, the police, and officials at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill over its plan to house a Confederate monument, Silent Sam, in a campus center, the protesters have a new bargaining chip: students’ grades.

Just as the fall semester is set to close, activists say, at least 79 teaching assistants and instructors have joined a rare “grade strike,” pledging to withhold more than 2,000 final grades unless the university meets their conditions. A Chapel Hill spokeswoman said on Friday evening that the university could not verify those numbers.

Final exams have already begun, and the first grades will be due next week.