/Top UM fundraisers, including current athletics director, support Confederate statue relocation

Top UM fundraisers, including current athletics director, support Confederate statue relocation

Nonprofit Mississippi News: The University of Mississippi’s top fundraisers including the current athletics chief, support the proposal to move the Confederate monument. Keith Carter, who was the former athletics director and is now the athletics director, signed an April 8, 2019 memo with the alumni association and university foundation supporting the university’s plans to move the monument from its prominent location on campus to an off-campus Confederate Cemetery. The memo states that “We fully support the University’s decision for a better location for the Confederate Monument.” Mississippi Today has obtained the memo. It was attached to Larry Sparks, former interim Chancellor, and distributed to the board members of the three entities. The memo was signed by Kirk Purdom, university’s executive director of alumni relations, and Wendell Weakley (the University of Mississippi Foundation president). According to the university, Purdom, Carter and Weakley reiterated their support for “the university’s efforts led by the Chancellor Boyce to collaborate with the IHL board” in a statement released this week to Mississippi Today. The memo from last year and this week’s statement show that there is more support for moving the monument than was previously reported. It also seems to confirm concerns that the monument and the increased attention it has received from neoconfederate groups could harm university fundraising and recruitment. At the university’s main entrance, visitors are greeted by the 30-foot monument of a Confederate soldier in battle readiness, which was erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1906. The university’s student senate and faculty senate passed a resolution in February and March 2019 that required the monument to be moved to an on-campus cemetery where Confederate soldiers were buried. It is hidden from the main roads and in an obscure corner of campus. Opponents argue that the relocation plan did not take into account wider opinions on campus or among alumni. The university’s leaders still submitted their proposal to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. In December, the board of trustees of the state agency unanimously approved the university’s relocation plan. The relocation went stale in January, when the Institutions for Higher Learning board, which has the final say on the matter, pulled the proposal from its agenda. Tommy Duff, a Hattiesburg billionaire, removed the item from its agenda. He stated that he wanted a “full report” from the university regarding the university’s efforts to contextualize the symbols that are associated with the Confederacy and other problematic leaders from Mississippi’s history. Glenn Boyce, the newly appointed Chancellor, said that he would try to satisfy the request of the board for more information after the IHL removed the item from the agenda. Boyce stated that he was committed to working with IHL board members to achieve our goal of moving the monument. The proposal is now off the IHL’s desk. However, IHL board members opposed to the relocation hope that the Legislature will pass a bill in the 2020 session that would prevent the university moving the monument. Sources close to IHL board members told Mississippi Today this weekend. Two bills have been filed this session that would prevent the university moving the monument. Sens. Sens. Leaders often use this practice — in this instance, Republican Lt. Governor. Delbert Hosemann — to make it difficult for controversial bills to be passed. The Feb. 24 deadline for general bills is up, but legislators could still deal with the monument by using loopholes later in the legislative process. Boyce must submit Boyce’s proposal to the IHL board before the board can reconsider the proposal. Boyce stated earlier this month that although IHL board deliberations are often held in private, he would keep the public informed of developments and provide updates as they occur.