Consequences could be slow in coming for UNC students who celebrated on Franklin Street

It was sight that didn't surprise but frustrated those on campus who have been taking the coronavirus pandemic seriously.

Alexis Gage, a post-baccalaureate student, said, "I honestly wasn’t surprised at all. My friends and I were talking about it. We were kind of expecting it to happen. But I was still disappointed nonetheless."

Junior Abby Smith worried about returning to class on Monday. "I was a little hesitant going to class today knowing that people were out on Franklin literally in massive mobs," she said. "It was very frustrating. My professor actually sent an email encouraging us not to come to class if you were in that crazy rush on Saturday, so I was very encouraged by that."

Professor Michael Palm, president of the UNC chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said he saw the celebration as the latest in series of bad decisions.

It is, he said, "not just the isolated incident of the students gathering on Franklin Street, but the decision to have basketball games in the first place amid the pandemic as well as the decision to resume in-person classes this spring.

"If the chancellor wants to investigate this incident, as he communicated he does, he should start with the decision to host basketball games this season in the middle of the pandemic, rather than looking for individual students to single out for blame," Palm said.

By Monday, the university was considering 300 reports about students on Franklin Street. To vet each one and determine if there is a violation of the university's "COVID-19 Community Standards" could take awhile, according to Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Amy Johnson.

Those standards allow for punishment that ranges from a warning to restriction from living or attending class on campus. A UNC representative provided this excerpt about the possible consequences:

Failure to comply with the Community Standards may result in administrative action, including, but not limited to, restriction on access to or use of University facilities, removal from University housing, disenrollment from one or more in-person courses, transition to remote-only instruction and/or other interventions necessary to effect compliance and protect the well-being of the campus community. In the case of willful failure to comply with the provisions of the administrative review policy and/or repeated violations, the University may pursue additional disciplinary actions in accordance with relevant University policies.   

Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall said his office would not pursue charges for violations of the state limit on public gatherings.

"I am hopeful that the university is going to take the appropriate action," he said. "I just don’t think it should be a law enforcement or a court issue.”

Gage said her fellow students need to face some kind of repercussion.

"I don’t know what that might be," she said, "because whatever they are doing now isn't working."

Palm said he hopes the sight of the crowd prompts the university to do more frequent and widespread testing.

"I’m less concerned with punishing them than with making sure that any spread from that event doesn’t spread throughout the campus community and the Chapel Hill community," he said.