In April 2024, as anti-Israel protests overtook the nation’s campuses, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s then-interim chancellor Lee Roberts made headlines with a viral gesture. After a group of protesters removed the American flag and replaced it with the Palestinian flag at the campus’s quad, Roberts walked to the flagpole with campus police officers to raise the Stars and Stripes. The moment blew up on social media, portraying Roberts as a bold leader, likely cementing his permanent appointment later that year.
UNC Chapel Hill had already led the way on several key reforms. Its Board of Trustees adopted an institutional neutrality policy. It also created the School of Civic Life and Leadership, aimed at cultivating civil discourse and other habits of good citizenship in students. Roberts was widely expected to pick up the torch.