The bronze statue, “Silent Sam,” stood on the campus of the University of North Carolina since 1913 until it was toppled by students on August 20, 2018. State law requires that the statue be maintained. Despite the fact that students, faculty and, perhaps, the administration would rather be rid of this homage to confederate soldiers, UNC came up with a plan to construct a new building to house the statue.

Any dispute over the maintenance of the statue at UNC is beside the point. That students and faculty today believe it should be removed as a symbol of racism is presumed as a given. That state law prevents this isn’t subject to dispute. So teaching assistants at UNC have decided to engage in an “action.”

Several dozen teaching assistants at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill started a strike Friday, saying that they will withhold student grades as long as the university moves ahead with the idea of constructing a building to house the Confederate monument known as Silent Sam. The strike comes after classes have finished for the semester and students are preparing for final exams and normally would be soon receiving final grades.

As of early afternoon, the organizers said that they had nearly 80 teaching assistants on strike, and that they were holding back the grades of more than 2,000 students.

For reasons that are unclear, the TAs find it important to note this is not a “strike,” but an “action,” as they are doing their work of grading, but simply not reporting the grades. For the students whose grades are being withheld, this distinction means little. For the school, this action presents a difficult problem, putting the administration between appearing to support a symbol of white supremacy and protecting its students whose grades are being withheld.

Our students are entitled to receive their grades in a timely manner. It is especially critical for the students preparing to graduate next Sunday, as well as the thousands of students whose scholarships, grants, loans, visa status, school transfers, job opportunities and military commissions may be imperiled because lack of grades threaten their eligibility. The proposed strike exposes the University and individuals who withhold grades to legal claims for the harm they cause to students.

But what of the Teaching Assistants? Sure, they are students, but being a TA is also a job, and like all jobs, it includes responsibilities. That they are vehemently against the plan to put Silent Sam in a new building is fine. That they want “their voices heard” is de rigueur for students. That they have chosen to engage in disobedience is a time-honored means of taking a stand, although the initial taking down of the statue was civil disobedience, while the current action is not. They are not violating any law, but rather engaged in a job action, whether one calls it a strike or something more euphemistic.

For aficionados of labor history, the method employed by the 80 TAs will be familiar. It’s like the secondary boycotts that were prohibited under Section 8(b)(4) of the the National Labor Relations Act, where a union would strike a neutral company to coerce it to stop doing business with the target company. The neutral company here are the students whose grades go unreported. They did nothing wrong. They can’t fix the problem. Yet, they will be the ones to suffer.

While the motives of the TAs, to compel UNC to remove Silent Sam from the campus, might be laudable, the method comes at the expense of the innocent, the students. No doubt some students will be fine with this method, willing to sacrifice their timely receipt of their grade for a goal with which they agree. Some students may end up suffering consequences that will prove quite harsh, such as loss of a job or commission.

There will likely be cries for relief from consequences later, as being so terribly unfair since their purposes were pure, even if their methods were misguided. While the nature of engaging in disobedience incorporates the consequences for such actions, the point being that they feel strongly enough about the cause that they will suffer for it, they don’t really want to suffer, and can take comfort in knowing that they likely won’t.

But that doesn’t stop the voices of encouragement of such actions in the heat of the moment.

Shout out to the incredibly courageous teaching assistants at UNC Chapel Hill.

Is it courageous? Is it incredibly courageous? The comments at IHE are strongly against this “action,” calling for the TAs who did this to be fired.

Graduate assistants have been hired to do a job, and they do not have a right to withhold the grades for any students and hold the university hostage to their political whims. I do not care if they are taking the correct moral stance–there are other ways of expressing their views on this issue and conveying to others what the correct moral stance is, in their opinion. UNC should make it crystal clear that graduate assistants who violate the rights of students because of a political agenda will be terminated for cause.

There are some who disagree.

Actually they should be supported for taking a correct moral stance.

And the ubiquitous “Says the old white guy.” But comments of this sort bear nothing on the “courageousness” of the action, regardless of the morality of their stance.

If nothing else, their courage should be acknowledged, because they are risking far more than any probable consequences re. the affected undergraduates. First of all, they are risking not just their jobs but their careers. Without the tuition scholarships that accompany teaching positions, most will have to leave school. Graduate tuition, especially for non-residents and foreign students, is prohibitively high and T.A.positions are highly competitive, Thus, grad students are usually easily cowed by the pressure to remain in the good graces of their departments. The wrath of just one or two professors can wreck havoc on a dissertation committee, on crucial recommendations, on publication opportunities and much more. Clearly the faculty has indicated its support in some manner, but the TAs remain vulnerable to an administration that answers to the state.

Maybe the TAs have taken an enormous risk by engaging in this action. Much as the likelihood of consequences is slim, it isn’t none, and the TAs can’t be certain that the solidarity of numbers will save them. But the “victims” of their risk remain other students, not UNC Chapel Hill. And the support they can anticipate for their moral stance will be huge.

It’s possible to be courageous, foolish and moral at the same time. Can one be courageous when the victim of one’s actions is innocent of wrongdoing, no matter how moral the cause?