On April 30, a pro-Palestinian protest on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus exploded in violence. The most famous scene from that day was then-interim Chancellor Lee Roberts, surrounded by law enforcement, returning an American flag to the flagpole on Polk Place, a short time after demonstrators had replaced it with a Palestinian flag.
Two students, Laura Saavedra Forero and Brendan Rosenblum, played central roles on that day, albeit in different ways and for different reasons. But for all their differences, they share a commitment to their cause and a deep humanity that has gotten lost in all that happened that day — and since.
WUNC’s Brianna Atkinson spent considerable time with both and tells their stories, one year later.
One year ago this week, as protesters established a pro-Palestinian encampment on the Quad at UNC-Chapel Hill, Laura Saavedra Forero woke up, donned her Carolina blue keffiyeh, and left her dorm in time to make her 8 a.m. introductory physics class. After, Forero headed to Polk Place.
Instead of blankets and lounging students, the Quad was covered with tents and “Free Palestine” signs. When Forero first arrived, she just had her essentials: her bookbag, laptop, and medical supplies, which hung from the back of her wheelchair. She’d later add a small pack of Palestinian flags, artwork, and her bright pink stuffed unicorn, Vanessa.
For the next couple of days, Forero spent her mornings in class or charging her devices in the library and would return to the encampment in the afternoon. At night, she used her stuffed animal as a pillow as she slept outside on an air mattress.
“I think about the encampment now and I just get this warm feeling inside, because it really was a mini version of a world I want to live in,” Forero said. “We were eating three meals a day, staying hydrated, having sweet treats, having social interaction on a consistent basis. I really just felt safe and wanted, which is not a common experience for a lot of us who were there on this campus.”
That all changed on April 30th.
Peyton Sickles
/
For WUNC
Very early that morning, Chancellor Lee Roberts and then-Provost Chris Clemens sent the protest organizers a letter, demanding they disband the encampment by 6 a.m. The administrators said the demonstration went against a university policy that forbids people from erecting tents on campus.
Those that remained after the deadline, the letter stated, would risk arrest and expulsion from campus.
Forero, who came to Carolina as a prestigious Morehead-Cain Scholar, knew she couldn’t risk getting arrested.
The scholarship program placed her on watch since the previous November, when she first got involved with campus pro-Palestinian protests. They made her sign a contract, saying she wouldn’t participate in anything that would disrupt people’s ability to learn, couldn’t spread propaganda refutable by claims, and several other conditions.
If she broke any of them, she’d lose the scholarship.
By the time Forero heard of the dispersal news, there were mere minutes left until the deadline.
“We got raided,” Forero said. “I had less than ten minutes, and we had already been completely surrounded by cops from across the state. I was supporting with jail support and just seeing my friends get brutalized around me. I knew that I was at high risk because of all of these things with Morehead.”
In the chaos, Forero’s keffiyeh, her stuffed animal Vanessa, and her bookbag — which had her laptop and wheelchair charger — were taken. Police arrested over three dozen protesters, and by 7 a.m. Polk Place was cleared and surrounded by metal barricades.
Peyton Sickles
/
for WUNC
By that afternoon, hundreds of people had returned to hold a vigil for the detained protesters. That soon turned into another violent outburst, where demonstrators knocked down the barricades and reentered the area. The demonstration escalated when protesters removed the American flag from a flagpole in the center of Polk Place and replaced it with a Palestinian one.
Forero sat on the outskirts filming as police dragged protesters from the flagpole.
“And before I knew it, I was completely knocked over,” Forero said. “I was just sitting there filming, I’m knocked over, and then an officer steps on the barricade trying to keep me pinned under it. And people immediately rush in (to help), like I said, community has always saved me.”
That day, photos and videos of her trapped under the barricade began circulating around social media. It would later become one of the many images that would make Forero a target.
Unlike other students who can use masks to shield their identities, Forero’s wheelchair makes her easily recognizable. And she was already a well-known voice on campus for her past activism for disability rights.
“I knew I was being watched, both from the university (and) from Morehead-Cain. There was nowhere where I was ‘safe,’ because there was nowhere where I could hide my identity,” Forero said. “Constantly being surveilled — that is very much a significant form of oppression. And I wasn’t going to let my visibility prohibit me from standing for the things that I believe in. And by doing so, I had to pay some extra costs or at least consider them.”
In the next year, those costs of being an activist would expand to include Forero being doxxed, criminally charged, and losing her scholarship.
‘From a very early age, I figured out my purpose’
Before Forero was an activist, she was a sports-loving kid in Charlotte. She’s the daughter of two immigrants from Colombia and the youngest of two siblings.
She loved soccer. Back then, Forero wasn’t in a wheelchair, and played throughout her early years. She was drawn to the community aspect of being part of a team and loved that the sport represented her culture.
Soccer also ended up being a catalyst for her activism.
When she was 12 years old, Forero tore the cartilage in her hip socket during a game. What she thought would be a simple surgical fix turned into five surgeries. At age 17, she woke up paralyzed from the waist down and has been using a wheelchair since.
After the initial injury, Forero stopped playing, creating an enormous void in her schedule.
She filled it by working with a mutual aid organization at the Greyhound bus station on Friday nights. The group welcomed migrants coming through Charlotte, providing them with food, information, and other basic resources. It was the same station her parents passed through when they immigrated to the U.S.
Forero’s “job” was to play with the kids.
“Kicking a little fake soccer ball inside of the Greyhound bus station with these kids meant more to me than they’ll ever know,” Forero said. “Seeing their joy and seeing their parents’ joy and sigh of relief that they could see their children as children again and not have to expect them to act like adults – I don’t know, it really felt full circle in that moment. That’s something that I thought was completely gone from my life, but I was very much just taking a new role in my life.”
“I took a new perspective,” Forero continued. “Of fueling empathy and love and of sending clear messages of people’s humanity.”
Forero said the experience opened her eyes to systematic marginalization in her community. It was also the jumping off point for a small business she founded with another volunteer, Manolo Betancur, called “By Immigrant Hands.” The two sold clothes and accessories, with the proceeds going back to support people in the community.
“Constantly being surveilled — that is very much a significant form of oppression. And I wasn’t going to let my visibility prohibit me from standing for the things that I believe in.” — Laura Saavedra Forero
As she got older, Forero became involved in more and more causes. She participated in Black Lives Matter protests, led climate strikes, and partnered with abortion clinics to distribute reproductive health supplies across Charlotte — all before she turned 18.
“My high school years, people were talking about partying on weekends, and I was talking about going to do a direct action at Bank of America and organizing climate strikes on Friday afternoons,” Forero said. “I, just from a very early age, figured out my purpose as a whole and what living a fulfilled life looks like for me. Regardless of where I am, the institutions I’m part of, because community is something that I will not give up for anything in the world.”
Morehead-Cain highlighted her dedication to activism when announcing Forero as one of its Class of 2025 scholars.
‘I never hid what I did’
The Morehead-Cain scholarship was established in 1951 and is the most prestigious scholarship program at UNC-Chapel Hill. The foundation fully funds all four years of college for 75 scholars per year and provides them with a stipend for summer enrichment experiences.
Morehead-Cain touts “four pillars” of scholarship: leadership, scholarship, physical vigor, and moral force of character.
That last pillar stood out to Forero when she applied. Her application focused on her activism work and her commitment to direct action, a type of protest that uses disruption to “force people to pay attention.”
“From the very beginning, I never hid what I did,” Forero said. “I had a meeting with (Morehead-Cain’s president, Chris Bradford). My first meeting ever was about direct action and arrestability.”
In that meeting, Forero said Bradford told her not to let any fear of losing her scholarship stop her from participating in activist work.
In her freshman year, Forero was elected co-president of the Campus Y, UNC’s social justice hub, and became a team manager for the women’s soccer team.
Courtesy of Laura Saavedra Forero
“Being part of a team for me is something that I really missed when I got injured,” Forero said. “I’m glad that I found and got that experience at Carolina, and then winning a national championship was beyond anything I could have imagined. If you told me I’d be sitting there holding the national championship trophy when I woke up paralyzed in 2020 — I would’ve laughed in your face.
“Carolina has worked in magical ways,” Forero continued. “But I’ve had to do a lot of that for myself.”
During her sophomore year, Forero became well-known around campus as an advocate for disability rights. In 2022, she was stranded in her fourth-floor dorm room for 32 hours after an elevator broke down.
A crew eventually evacuated her from the dorm using an uncomfortable stair chair that resembled a wheelbarrow. Forero said the hours-long process was dehumanizing, and she spent the next year trying to push the university to improve accessibility on campus.
Most of that was through back-and-forth email communications that led nowhere. So, Forero decided to take a more direct approach.
She started with an awareness campaign called ‘Carolina for Every Body.’ Forero led a sit-down in South Building, UNC’s administrative building, where she and other students physically blocked all the doors except for the accessibility entrance. The goal was for administrators to experience how students like her must navigate campus.
Nine months later, she returned to South Building again, this time leading a protest outside. Forero and Campus Y co-president Megan Murphy chained themselves together on the steps and sat outside for 32 hours, representing how long Forero was stuck in her dorm during the elevator breakdown.
Several students, as well as Forero’s mother and sister, joined them, sitting on the steps overnight and in the rain. Then-Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz came outside during the protest to speak with Forero and Murphy about their accessibility concerns. He later sent the Daily Tar Heel, the student newspaper, a statement about the discussion, saying he was “deeply grateful” for the students’ advocacy.
Morehead-Cain also lauded Forero’s disability activism, even inviting her to speak about protesting and accessibility on their Catalyze podcast.
The tone appeared to change after Forero participated in a boycott against Starbucks in November 2023. She posted a cartoon visual on her Instagram story that showed a distorted version of a Starbucks barista making coffee. The graphic replaced grinds with cartoon drawn versions of people. Instead of coffee, the machine poured out blood into a paper Starbucks cup. The barista had a Star of David bracelet around its wrist and the coffee machine said, “made in the USA.”
Not long after Forero posted the image, Bradford, the Morehead-Cain president, asked her to meet. He presented her with a printed-out copy of the image and equated it to a tactic Nazis used leading up to World War II that falsely accused Jewish people of ritualistically using the blood of non-Jewish people.
“(Bradford) accused me of blood libel and the fact that this cartoon was something that would be out of Hitler’s book. And it was a cartoon criticizing Starbucks, it was part of the beginning of the big boycott,” Forero said. “He told me that he had been receiving multiple calls about me for the past five weeks, about my behavior. But wouldn’t tell me what that behavior was or what these people were saying, which I was not surprised by because my DMs were getting some pretty horrific (messages).
“Morehead-Cain went from seeing my activism as something they could benefit off of, that they could showcase, to a threat,” Forero said. “I think since the moment I became an avid and vocal pro-Palestinian activist, they felt threatened. And from that moment, they most likely knew what they were going to do with my scholarship.”
Morehead-Cain leadership denied WUNC’s interview request to explain the organization’s position toward Forero. Instead, it provided a statement citing that the Morehead-Cain Foundation “does not disclose confidential information about current or former scholars.”
The statement also touted the organization’s history of championing “civic engagement” and that it is “dedicated to fostering a diverse and inclusive community where scholars are supported in their efforts to lead, learn, and shape the future with courage and conviction.”
‘I was just so on edge all the time’
About a week after the April 30 pro-Palestinian encampment, protesters gathered again for a rally outside of South Building. This time, instead of camping out on Polk Place, protesters surrounded the building’s exits and waited for administrators to leave.
Campus police, including a K-9 unit, had to escort administrators out of the building and to their cars. Protesters followed them, shouting: “Disclose, divest; we will not stop, we will not rest!”
Provost Chris Clemens is trying to leave and protestors are blocking the road. At least 5 police officers are surrounding his car and more are in the road. pic.twitter.com/9AuMqBWGfi
— Brianna Atkinson (@batkinson2501) May 8, 2024
When then-Provost Chris Clemens left, protesters moved out into the street to block his car from moving. They screamed “shame!” and “hands off our students!” as they hit his car and stuck messages to it.
Several dozen students were there that day, but only three were charged. That includes Forero, who was charged with impeding traffic and resisting an officer.
Forero said her goal that day was to get answers from administrators. As they left the building, she tried asking them if they’d seen the photos and videos of her being knocked out of her wheelchair and pinned underneath the barricade.
“If they had seen what had happened to me. The police officer who brutalized me that day brutalized a lot of other folks, giving them concussions, there’s a picture that went pretty viral of them pulling somebody by the ponytail,” Forero said. “I was sort of demanding answers, and none of them would engage with that.”
After the protest, Bradford, the Morehead-Cain President, emailed Forero, questioning her participation and saying he’d been in contact with university administrators. A couple of weeks later, he suspended Forero’s scholarship for the next semester, saying her behavior went against the contract she’d signed.
Forero paid for school using another scholarship and a community-organized GoFundMe. Over 300 donors helped raise $18,000 to keep her in school.
Even with the suspension, Forero continued to participate in more and more protests. As her involvement picked up, so did outside threats from doxxers. Several social media accounts posted photos of Forero, calling her antisemitic, a Nazi, and a terrorist, among other things.
The hate rose to the point that Forero’s friends started a death threat watch. When one account posted her dorm address, Forero decided it was no longer safe for her to be alone on campus.
“I was just so on edge all the time, head on a swivel, looking left and right,” Forero said. “As someone who’s hyper visible and easy to identify, I was trying to take measures where I could not have the same routine every day. Or when I got home late at night, I had someone there. I couchsurfed for months, which is very difficult as a disabled person.”
In September, Forero participated in a pro-Palestinian walkout. She also filmed protesters at the rally, similar to other students and community members in attendance.
When the rally was over, some demonstrators began to vandalize campus buildings. Protesters used red and purple spray paint to write “free Palestine,” “burn it all,” “UNC divest,” and several other messages on the schools ROTC Naval Armory. They also entered at least nine academic buildings, spray painting the interiors and exteriors along the way.
Shortly after the protest, UNC Police obtained a search warrant for Forero’s cell phone.
Three police officers came to apprehend Forero’s phone early on a Friday morning. When she saw the police outside her dorm room, Forero immediately called her lawyer and stayed on the line as she allowed the officers in.
“My lawyer hears that the search warrant is for my phone, so she advises me to turn it off. Before I even have a chance to click the side button, I have three cops on me,” Forero said. “Pushing me in different directions, one trying to grab my phone, my arm. They ultimately, the three grown men, knocked me out of my wheelchair.”
After the altercation, Forero was charged, again, with resisting an officer.
‘No greater show of moral force of character’
A couple of months later, Morehead-Cain’s Board of Trustees sent Forero a letter, saying they were officially terminating her scholarship. Forero said the foundation’s trustees still haven’t given her a clear explanation as to why they revoked her scholarship.
According to the letter, she was terminated because she told people about her suspension, via a GoFundMe page to raise money for her to stay in school, and didn’t let the board of trustees know about her additional resisting an officer charge.
Forero is still facing two charges of resisting an officer. She’s filed a federal lawsuit against the university to challenge the charge from September.
Forero said the foundation never told her she had to communicate additional charges, and that the information is publicly available since it’s an open case.
“In the Morehead-Cain termination letter, they cite moral force of character a lot,” Forero continued. “And for me, I think that there is no greater show of moral force of character than being willing to stand up to a genocidal regime knowing the consequences that await. For me, graduating as a Morehead-Cain Scholar is not the definition of success — and I might have thought that when I came in freshman year, but I’ve grown a lot.”
‘What am I willing to sacrifice for liberation?’
Forero will graduate from UNC-Chapel Hill next month with a degree in neuroscience. She hopes to become a doctor and someday open her own community-centered clinic.
This time, however, Forero said she will pursue her education in another state. She wants to spend her summer in New York and might get involved with clinical research before officially applying to medical school. She doesn’t want to return to Chapel Hill.
“I don’t know how many times this institution has tried to stop me from graduating, from getting my degree, from being safe and happy, and I’ve just found a way,” Forero said. “My parents are very eager for me to graduate and very worried that there will be some sort of other obstacle, because every obstacle that’s been unimaginable has somehow become reality for me. It really will be a family feat and community feat once I walk across that stage and have that diploma in my hand.”
Even with everything she’s lost, Forero said she would participate in another encampment.
“This is the only morally right thing for me to do,” Forero said. “And you know, I wake up every day and think about what am I willing to risk and what am I willing to sacrifice for liberation or for a bigger movement? What’s at risk for me is usually far less than what’s at risk for people on the front lines in Gaza.”
“Going through these arbitrary disciplinary processes; or unfair targeting because I am in a wheelchair and therefore identifiable; or severe repression, intimidation … or being told that I was likely to lose my Morehead-Cain scholarship,” Forero continued, “None of that was actually hard when I look at the world in a bigger lens.”
WUNC partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
