CHAPEL HILL — The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is lifting a moratorium that had been in place since 2015 preventing the school from removing names on campus buildings that may be associated with slaveholders or white supremacy.
The university imposed the moratorium after changing the name of Saunders Hall to Carolina Hall to remove the name of William Saunders, a 19th-century board member at the school and also a purported Ku Klux Klan leader.
The moratorium was supposed to last until 2031, but the board of trustees voted Wednesday to lift it.
Since 2015, students and a professor at the university have created an inventory of building names on campus associated with slavery, segregation and white supremacy. A task force at the university has embarked on a similar task, the university said.
The university said Wednesday that four trustees will begin reviewing potential guidelines for deciding what names should be removed.
A Confederate statue on campus known as “Silent Sam” was torn down by protesters in 2018.