‘Disgraceful, Selfish and Dangerous’

Students, faculty and staff members, and alumni of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, were horrified and outraged at the sight of hundreds of students crowding onto a popular street full of bars and restaurants over the weekend to celebrate the men’s basketball team’s win over Duke University. The possibility of spreading the coronavirus and undermining the university’s attempt to safely begin in-person classes this Monday seemed lost on the jubilant crowd of revelers.

In a typical year, the crowd would be expected; it’s a tradition for Tar Heel fans to rush nearby Franklin Street after beating the rival Blue Devils, a cutthroat basketball foe based 20 minutes away in Durham, N.C. But after Chapel Hill’s widely publicized failed attempt to hold an in-person semester six months ago due to COVID-19 spread, people affiliated with the campus were quick to label the crowd of students “embarrassing” and “disgraceful.”

In August, UNC Chapel Hill was forced to quickly abandon in-person classes and full-capacity residence halls and return to remote instruction during the first week of the fall semester due to a surge of coronavirus cases among students. The possibility of having to revert to mostly online classes infuriated some people.

Faculty members, students and alumni said on social media and in written statements that the weekend display of mostly maskless students packed together and deliberately flouting public health guidance -- two days before the start of Chapel Hill’s second attempt at an in-person semester during the pandemic -- is evidence that students still don’t get it, or simply don’t care about preventing the spread of COVID-19.

“Some students could be seen grinning ear-to-ear as they posed for pictures with friends,” wrote the editorial board of The Daily Tar Heel, the university’s student newspaper. “Many were not wearing masks. Others yelled things like ‘F--- COVID’ and said they weren't worried about the spread of COVID-19 because they'd ‘already had it.’”

Mimi Chapman, associate dean for doctoral education in the School of Social Work and chair of the faculty, estimated in a Feb. 8 letter to faculty members that the crowd was some 1,500 strong. It was arguably one of the largest seen among colleges so far during the new year; however, hundreds also flooded the streets of Tuscaloosa, Ala., after the University of Alabama won the college football championship in January. President Stuart Bell then allowed professors to switch to remote classes for two weeks.

Amy Johnson, vice chancellor for student affairs at Chapel Hill, said in an email update to the campus Monday that the student conduct office had so far received more than 300 referrals of students who were identified as participants. Processing all the complaints will “take some time,” but students who are verified to have violated the university’s COVID-19 policies could lose access to campus, be removed from their housing or be expelled, “depending on the severity of the violation,” Johnson said.

Chapel Hill officials are also publicly tracking the number of reported violations of COVID-19 policies and how students are punished for such violations through an online quarterly report, Johnson said. There were 635 total reports of violations between Aug. 1 and Jan. 31, when students were largely not on campus, and about 65 percent of the violations resulted in “developmental action,” such as written warnings and other educational sanctions, according to the online report. About 10 percent of the reported violations resulted in students’ removal from campus housing, the report says.

“Students were made aware that those who do not adhere to these standards are subject to administrative or disciplinary action,” Johnson’s email said.

Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz voiced his displeasure with the students’ recent behavior on his personal Twitter account Saturday.

“We are in the middle of a global pandemic, and COVID doesn’t take a break for the Duke game,” he tweeted. “We will investigate this incident and work with local authorities to pursue consequences.”

Guskiewicz was met with some pushback from alumni and others questioning why administrators allowed students back to the campus in the first place. Some of those people blamed him and other university leaders for not being better prepared to expect such a crowd as the natural result of students being on campus and being excited by the basketball team's win against the university's leading rival.

The Daily Tar Heel editorial board said the mostly white crowd that rushed into the street was “a classic case” of white privilege, a sentiment echoed in Chapman’s letter. She wrote that the behavior of students after the basketball team’s win threatens the health of those who are following the university’s COVID-19 community standards or who are required to go to campus in person for classes or jobs.

“Our students of color, in particular, have indicated that they feel this risk profoundly,” Chapman’s letter said. “The visuals of a generally white crowd of students rushing Franklin Street was a definition of white privilege, an inability or unwillingness to understand the impact such actions have on their BIPOC peers. This applies equally to staff who perform essential services and have virtually no choice in whether to work on campus or not.”

The incident also caused the cancellation of some in-person classes some professors were eager to teach again, Chapman said. Guskiewicz and Provost Robert Blouin announced on Feb. 7, just one day before the official start of the spring semester, that professors would be given the option to teach remotely until Feb. 17, despite a general desire among both students and faculty members to get back to the classroom. The university was already planning for a less crowded campus with about 85 percent of undergraduate courses taught remotely, a spokesperson for Chapel Hill said in an email.

Chapman said in her letter that she was “happy” to see administrators offer flexibility to faculty members concerned about the threat of COVID-19 spread following Saturday’s events. She said professors are conflicted about returning to the classroom as the university approaches the one-year anniversary in March of the declaration of the pandemic and the subsequent shutdown of college campuses across the country. She said there's no consensus; some professors want to get back to in-person teaching while others are “deeply skeptical” about the potential health risks, Chapman wrote.

“We are tired of operating virtually, the technological snafus, the disembodied feel, the eyestrain. We will be happy to walk through our beautiful campus and to catch a glimpse of a colleague here and there,” she wrote.

But “given the events of the weekend, we are worried,” Chapman wrote.