Neither the campus nor the local government want the monument to slavery there, but NC’s autocratic government has banned local governments from removing statues. When you shut down democracy, you get extralegal violence.
What are you famed tough guys going to do?
Neither one of us lives in NC but I imagine putting independent redistricting on the ballot so they never get a 50/50 state drawn to have an artificial supermajority of one party that refuses to work with a governor of a different party whom they stripped of powers ever again would be a good place to start