Ole Miss Students Vote to Remove Confederate Statue From Campus

The associated student government at the University of Mississippi voted unanimously Tuesday to remove a statue of a Confederate soldier, nearly two weeks after a pro-Confederate rally occurred at the school.

People burst out in applause when the Associated Student Body voted 47-0 to remove the statue. Student body president Elam Miller signing the resolution Tuesday night. The resolution now goes to the Dean of Students and then the vice chancellor of student affairs for their signature that acknowledges the resolution.

Not everyone agrees with removing the statue. Last month, about 100 protesters made up of supporters of Confederate 901 and the Hiwaymen, gathered in The Square in Oxford to march from the Confederate statue to The Square where the Confederate statue is located where they were met by about 50 counter-protesters.

“I started crying when I knew we had the majority vote," said Leah Davis, a black junior psychology major from Tupelo, Mississippi, told NBC News. "It was really powerful to me the fact that the senate voted unanimously.”

Davis was part of a small group of black and white students who spent several months researching and writing the bill for the student body government. The group worked with historians and lawyers as well as several on-campus student organizations, including the Greek societies. The resolution proposes moving the statue to a new location on school grounds, near a cemetery where hundreds of Confederate soldiers are buried. In the resolution, the ASB said: "Confederate ideology directly violates the tenets of the university creed that supports fairness, civility, and respect for the dignity of each person."

The resolution may have gone through, but there are still more hurdles before the statue will be moved. The university's Board of Trustees are ultimately responsible for deciding the statue's fate.

The Confederate soldier statue was erected in 1906 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Photo: Getty Images