Orange County, NC – On Saturday night, hundreds of students and fans at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill flooded Franklin Street after the basketball team defeated Duke University. It is a famous UNC-Chapel Hill tradition for students to celebrate a victory against rival Duke.
“I haven’t seen so many people in so long. It was definitely wild,” said Hannah Willcox, general manager of Sup Dogs.
Willcox said he predicted this would happen, even during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Freshmen, sophomores … they’re going to want to run to Franklin Street. They’re going to want a party like they’ve seen so many people do before,” she said.
On Sunday, UNC-Chapel Hill leaders said in a letter that they had received hundreds of complaints of student conduct related to the Franklin Street celebration.
“These leads will be evaluated and students who violate our COVID-19 Community Standards will be subject to developmental or disciplinary action,” said school leaders in a statement.
Chapel Hill and Orange County spent months trying to keep the number of coronaviruses low.
“We find ourselves talking all the time about how to do this together and keep people safe, and we still want our business to survive the pandemic, and you can only do that by having safe practices because people need to feel safe when they go into business and [the] companies need to have safe practices, “said Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger.
“It was so disturbing,” added Hemminger. “We work a lot together. We have been sending messages together. We have been working together …[we] asked students to sign a pledge. ”
Hemminger said that while some people may say they understand why students and fans celebrate, it was not a good thing during the pandemic.
“It is not right to let your guard down now. We are so close to the light at the end of the tunnel. The numbers are starting to drop due to the holidays. We have to be vigilant. We see the light. We just need to continue on that path towards it. Events like this just takes us backwards. ”
“We need to sacrifice these experiences so that we can overcome the pandemic,” said Willcox. “It’s kind of frustrating for companies that follow the rules and do their best [they can] to make sure Chapel Hill was safe. ”
Sunday was the last day for students to return to campus for the spring semester. School officials said that despite complaints about the incident, face-to-face undergraduate classes will continue on Monday as planned. However, faculty will be allowed to continue remote instruction on Monday and begin face-to-face learning on February 17.
