As the Associated Student Body Senate prepares to vote on relocating the Confederate monument from the Circle to the Confederate cemetery on campus, the Senate of the Faculty of the University of Mississippi will meet tonight at 6 p.m.
A statue of a Confederate soldier stands in The Circle on the Ole Miss campus. File photo by Christian Johnson
The university’s Graduate Student Council Senate voted last night at its meeting to pass a resolution to relocate the monument. The GSC’s resolution was almost identical to the ASB’s proposed resolution, which was done “on purpose,” according to GSC Senator Tom Porter, one of the authors of the resolution.
The only changes include the addition of a clause that denounces “white supremacy” and states that the GSC stands “in solidarity with UM student groups to foster inclusivity on our campus,” and the addition of a clause that clarifies the 2017 State of Mississippi Attorney General Opinion that “the statue can be moved to a ‘more suitable location.'”
Faculty senate chair Brice Noonan said that the Senate is not considering a resolution yet because one has not been proposed, but he expects that someone will propose a resolution similar to the Graduate Student Council’s tonight or later this week.
Noonan said that they will “certainly discuss” what the ASB is doing tonight at the Senate meeting, and that it is “certainly possible” that a resolution could be passed at the faculty senate meeting tonight if one is proposed.
“I don’t know that I necessarily hope that it will happen this evening, but I anticipate the Senate considers a similar resolution at some point — tonight, tomorrow or Thursday,” Noonan said. “If ASB passes it, it’s possible that we have a meeting on Thursday to consider a similar resolution if no one proposes one this evening.”
Faculty senate representatives have begun circulating a draft of the ASB’s proposed resolution to their respective schools.
ASB Senate is set to vote at 7:30 p.m. on a resolution to relocate the monument at its meeting tonight. This comes after the resolution was passed by the ASB Rules Committee last Thursday. The vote tonight will be the first step to getting the resolution to Interim Chancellor Larry Sparks’s desk.
