A bill to make major changes to North Carolina's math requirements for high school graduation is moving forward in the General Assembly. The House passed Wednesday, just in time to make the final deadline for bills to crossover from one chamber to the other to remain in play this legislative session. The bill has been sent to the Senate for consideration.

The bill would make the following changes to graduation requirements:

• It would no longer require all high school students to take a course known as Math 3.
  
• It would change the designation of computer science courses from an elective to a required math course. Computer science is already set to become a required course for graduation beginning next school year, but it currently does not count as a math class.
  
• It would add a requirement for all high school students to pass a U.S. history test based on questions on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' naturalization exam.

Currently, students are required to take Math 1, Math 2, Math 3, and at least one additional math course to graduate. Under this bill, a student could take Math 1, Math 2, computer science, and one additional math course and be eligible to graduate.

Supporters of the bill say it would allow students who struggle with math to take more time to cover the material in lower math courses. Critics say the bill would lower the state's academic standards.

Arguments for the math changes

Representative David Willis, R-Union, sponsored the bill. He has argued the proposal would better serve students who are not on an advanced math track and don't plan to pursue a STEM-related career.

"Today we have 70% of the students who are taking Math 1 in high school are not grade proficient. In other words, they're failing Math 1," Willis said during the bill's floor debate. "They're getting to college, whether it's the community college system or the UNC system, and many of them are having to take remedial math."

The statistic Willis cited does not include advanced students who take Math 1 in middle school.

Under the bill, students who begin Math 1 in high school could take their lower math courses as a year-long class to have more time to master the material.

"Our goal is to give the kids what they actually need and meet them where they're at and stop pretending to put a Band-Aid on a system where we're graduating students who aren't math ready for college," Willis said during an earlier discussion of the bill.

The bill would allow those students to still take Math 3 if they choose to for their final math requirement, or to choose another math course, such as statistics or accounting. The bill also changes the UNC System's admissions requirements to match the proposed state requirements.

Arguments against the math changes

Representative Julie von Haefen, D-Wake, has argued the bill would lower the state's expectations for students and possibly limit their college opportunities.

She raised concerns that most universities require students to pass four math classes in high school to qualify for admissions, and that they typically do not accept computer science as a math course.

"By removing Math 3 and requiring computer science, we are in misalignment with all other universities in the Southeast and are requiring the University of North Carolina system to lower their standards," von Haefen said.

She proposed an amendment to the bill to not accept computer science as a fulfillment of the math requirement. Willis responded that the UNC System is in support of the bill, and von Haefen's amendment failed on the House floor.

Von Haefen also raised concerns that schools might have difficulty staffing math classes if they are split into additional year-long courses, and also argued that Math 3 is an important class for college preparation.

"In conversations with math teachers myself, I've learned that much of the material in Math 3 is what's tested on the ACT and SAT, which many students still take to boost their college applications," von Haefen said.

"We are limiting our students' options for post-graduation by changing this, which … puts North Carolina students at the lowest standards in the entire Southeast for graduation," von Haefen said. "We are not setting our kids up for success."

There's been another breach involving student and teacher data stored on PowerSchool software, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mo Green said at a Wednesday evening press conference.

"It is completely unfortunate that the perpetrators are preying on innocent children and dedicated public servants," Green said. "We are working closely with law enforcement to try to do everything we can do to be sure that the responsible parties are held accountable for their actions."

School districts use PowerSchool to track student enrollment, attendance, and other data. In January, the company said it suffered a "global breach" that involved decades worth of data from hundreds of school districts in the U.S., Canada, and other countries. The breach exposed Social Security numbers of about 312,000 North Carolina teachers some 900 K-12 students.

At the time, PowerSchool assured educators that all the affected data had been destroyed. But this week, Green said, "threat actors" reached out to affected school systems to demand ransom for the data.

"The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction has not and certainly will not engage with these threat actors," Green said. "We are prohibited by law from doing so, as well."

Vanessa Wrenn, DPI's Chief Information Officer, said about 20 local education agencies received ransom emails. She said those messages "showed some evidence of having the same data that was breached in January. We are working with those schools, and we have also set up a way for schools who receive any other notification to reach out to us as well."

However, Wrenn and Green said it's not clear if the same attackers are responsible for both incidents.

, PowerSchool paid the hackers to view a video that purportedly showed the data being destroyed. It's not known how much PowerSchool paid for the video or if there was any secondary verification of the destruction.

"As is always the case with these situations, there was a risk that the bad actors would not delete the data they stole, despite assurances and evidence that were provided to us,"

Green said the state is ready to end its relationship with PowerSchool when its contract ends this summer. North Carolina schools will transition to a platform known as Infinite Campus, beginning July 1.

The officially kicked off an initiative on Wednesday that aims to provide for more than 400,000 K-12 students. The partnership is with , which is a telehealth service, and .

Virtual mental health services are currently live at Harnett County Schools and Durham County Public Schools. At the kick off event at Shawtown Elementary School in Lillington, State Health Secretary Dev Sangvai said Harnett County was chosen due to the needs of the school district.

"Partly, it was based on which counties had reached out for this type of assistance,” he said, at Wednesday’s event. “And, I think Harnett County stood up and said, ‘We're willing to do the kind of work that needs to be done.’”

Sangvai said he feels the services are needed, because one in four children are experiencing a mental health need in school.

Any students enrolled within participating districts will have access to a licensed therapist with Hazel Health before, during, and after the school day.

The services are also offered throughout the summer break.

“It reduces absenteeism,” said Anita Bachmann, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of North Carolina. “We're able to identify what the needs are of those children, whether it's stress, anxiety, depression, able to identify it and see it right there. To be able to get those services right on site, you don't have to stop and make an appointment days or weeks later.”

The state health department funded $3.5 million toward the virtual mental health services program. More school districts are expected to be added in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, State Health Secretary Sangvai said it’s unclear if the program or others similar to it will be impacted by federal cuts.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Ernie Suggs graduated from North Carolina Central University 35 years ago. This weekend he’ll be up on that graduation stage again, this time as an NCCU commencement speaker. He joins Due South’s Jeff Tiberii to talk about his deep North Carolina ties and his hopes for the next generation of journalists.

Guest

Ernie Suggs, reporter, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Wake County Schools' board of education approved a budget request for the upcoming school year that makes more than $18 million in cuts from the district's current operations and asks the Wake County Board of Commissioners to raise the school district's funding by $40.3 million. This budget also requires the district to spend down $21.4 million, or more than half of its rainy day fund.

The board passed the budget request 6-to-3, with Cheryl Caulfield, Christina Gordon, and Wing Ng voting against. Even though a majority of board members voted for the budget, they characterized it as a difficult decision and expressed disappointment in the cuts.

"With inadequate state funding and with limited county funding, we have to be realistic and responsible about how we plan to spend the funds that we best expect we will receive," said board chair Chris Heagarty.

The budget request now goes to the Wake County Board of Commissioners for their consideration as they finalize the county's budget.

Wake County Schools' Chief Business Officer David Neter said the county manager is proposing a $35 million increase in county funding to the district, more than $5 million short of the board's final budget request.

Breakdown of proposed budget cuts and adjustments to the Superintendent's proposal

The district's budget cuts include the following staff reductions:

• Removing vacant positions for administrators and nurses
• Redefining student-to-educator ratios for assistant principals, counselors, and social workers
• Removing "building subs" – substitute teachers who are stationed long term at specific buildings

Neter said the cuts would be necessary to fund the opening of four new schools and anticipated state-legislated employee raises, amid rising costs for charter schools that receive a portion of the district's local funding.

The school board's final budget request differs from Superintendent Robert Taylor's initial proposed budget, by restoring funding in these areas:

• The Superintendent's budget called to remove the employer contribution to employees' dental care premiums, starting in January 2026. The Board's budget calls for $2.5 million to keep those contributions.
  
• The Superintendent's budget called for reductions to contracted maintenance repairs. The Board's budget calls for $605,000 to restore reductions to maintenance.
  
• The Superintendent's budget called to reduce resources for area superintendents to use for Restart schools from $6 million to $5 million. The Board's budget would restore this cut. "Restart" is a reform model for schools that are considered continually low performing.

The school board's budget request proposes the following cuts to offset those changes:

• $2.8 million to reduce the Superintendent's proposed increase to local pay supplement for certified staff, including teachers, from 3% to 1.5%
• $500,000 in savings by adjusting building temperatures by 1 degree for air conditioning and heating
• About $764,000 from the community use fund to pay for background checks and utilities. The district's finance staff explained this would simply shift the source of those funds and would not impact other programs paid for by the community use fund.

School employee and board member reactions

During the school board's public comment period, educators called for the board to increase its request to the county to maintain the district's current operations.

"Please fight for no cuts for our kids," said Farmington Woods Elementary librarian Christine Zaccardi. "We show up every day. We ask the best of them. We bring the best of us, and we need the supplies and the resources to enable us to do that each day."

Wake County Association of Educators' President Christina Cole made a final plea for the board to make no cuts, reminding board members that this is Teacher Appreciation Week.

"The power is in your hands," Cole said. "Show public school staff you appreciate them this week by voting for a budget that requests what we need."

Board member Toshiba Rice compared her feelings about the budget to a mother with limited resources telling her child before they enter a store, "This is all I have, and don't ask for anything more."

"It's not what we desire; it's not what I desire. It is frustrating, but this is all we have," Rice said.

In voting against the budget, Cheryl Caulfield said she could not support a reduction in the locally-funded salary supplement for teachers.

"There's no way that I just feel justified allowing the supplement to be a sacrifice to get the resources in the classrooms," Caulfield said. "I have a hard time believing that we cannot conserve in other areas."

Board member Wing Ng said he was torn about his vote, and supported the additional funding for Restart schools, but ultimately voted against the budget. Ng and Sam Hershey both called for a broader organizational study to better understand the district's staffing and spending across levels of management.

Others blamed a lack of state funding from the North Carolina General Assembly for putting school boards in a tight place.

"As long as the General Assembly continues to erode public school funding, we will probably have to cut more in upcoming years, and that will certainly be true if federal cuts continue," said Lynn Edmonds.

has lost a five-year federal grant for more than $14 million.

The grant would have allowed the district to expand the current School Board Mental Health Program for 106 schools. It was designed to fund 27 new positions as a part of a long-term goal to provide a mental health counselor in every school by the end of the 2025-2026 school year.

Some positions that would have been funded through the grant include 20 therapists to deliver direct counseling to students as well as instructional assistants to assist students in acute crisis situations across the district.

Currently, 106 WCPSS schools provide access to mental health services through in-person counseling and teletherapy in partnership with community providers. Wake County Public Schools received a from the U.S. Department of Education, notifying them that the grant would not continue because the , conflicting with the Education Department’s policy of prioritizing merit and fairness, and amounted to an inappropriate use of federal money.

Meanwhile, UNC-Chapel Hill was awarded a federal grant in 2023. When the original grant was awarded, the university expected to receive grants for five years. The first year’s award was more than $389,000. UNC also received a letter from the U.S. Department of Education that said the program will discontinue at the end of December.

The last two years of the grant will not be funded, which is a total of more than $943,000. UNC said in a statement, it is early in the process of determining impacts and will have more information in the coming weeks.

"Just a couple of degrees can make a lot of difference when the trees are blooming," Deal said, as he inspected the blossom. "But yep, that's one small apple that's starting to develop."

Deal's grandparents first planted the orchard in 1939, in what is the second-largest apple growing region in the state. Fruit trees grow on the hillsides sloping up either side of N.C. Highway 16, in what's known as the Brushy Mountains. The elevation protects the apple blossoms from spring frosts.

Luckily, Deal's fruit survived the frost this year, and he's hoping for a good crop come fall. But now he has a new worry: whether he'll have as many buyers as usual.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration eliminated funding for a that helps schools buy produce from local farms like . Another program that was cut did the same for regional food banks.

Deal said he doesn't yet know the full impact that policy change will have on his farm — but he does know schools make up about 20% of his wholesale market.

"School systems just simply won't have the funds to purchase at the levels that they used to, and that's sad for me," Deal said. "I consider our competition to be junk food and potato chips."

For about twenty years, Deal's apples have gone into North Carolina school lunches through the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program. Deal said it's been good for children, good for the state's economy, and good for his business.

"We have other outlets for the larger fruit, but generally speaking, the smaller fruit is a good fit for the school systems and for young children," Deal explained.

Those smaller apples fit in a child's palm. Grocery stores might be less interested in them, but by selling to schools, Deal has a buyer for every size of apple that grows on his trees.

"We need to sell every, every box that we pick in order to make it, and the school systems, the food hubs, they're a large part of that," Deal explained.

Food hubs connect local farms to consumers

About 140 miles away in Durham, apples from Deal Orchards fill a walk-in refrigerator at , a nonprofit food hub that transports North Carolina produce to schools, food banks, and small markets.

On a recent afternoon, Farmer Foodshare's Development Director Hillary Bruce opened a large refrigerator door to the apple storage.

"It smells amazing!" Bruce exclaimed. "It's definitely a perk of working here, how good this cooler in particular smells."

Bruce explained that the storage rooms full of apples, bell peppers, and tomatoes are more fragrant than the produce section of a grocery store because they're so fresh.

Farmer Foodshare's trucks drive out to farms regularly to bring produce into cold storage in Durham before it gets distributed throughout central North Carolina.

"We are sending refrigerated vehicles out to small farmers who wouldn't be able to afford to do that otherwise," Bruce said. "Oftentimes the produce that customers are receiving was in the field just a couple of days ago."

One of Farmer Foodshare's big customers has been local public schools. Bruce said she hopes the program changes how kids feel about fruits and vegetables.

"As a kid, I thought I hated tomatoes, but it turned out I just hated tomatoes that were not in season and just tasted kind of mealy and watery," Bruce said. "Once I started eating tomatoes that were in season and often grown locally, I was like, 'Oh my gosh, I actually love these!'"

Bruce said Farmer Foodshare's staff were shocked when the USDA announced the program would be cut entirely, because the funds were originally set to grow next year. They had hoped to expand service to more school districts.

"To have the federal funding end right now was really unfortunate," Bruce said.

Most NC school districts relied on federal funding to buy local produce

In recent years, Farmer Foodshare has distributed produce to Alamance-Burlington Schools, Durham Public Schools, and Orange County Schools. Durham Public Schools uses a mix of federal and local funds for the program, but the other districts rely primarily on the USDA grants to buy local produce.

This year, the North Carolina Department of Agriculture to 100 school districts and seven charter schools to buy from local food hubs.

Alamance-Burlington Schools' Child Nutrition Director Spencer Brown said the district received $93,000 this year, and was anticipating about twice as much federal funding next year.

The exact funding varies district by district, but in any case it will be hard for districts across the state to make up the lost funds if they want to keep buying local meat and produce.

"When sweet potatoes were in, we had sweet potatoes. When broccoli was coming up, we had broccoli. Strawberries were a special treat," Brown said.

Alamance-Burlington Schools also purchased some of Deal's apples this school year.

Brown said he'll pursue other grant funding, but like many other school systems, the district is facing many budget pressures right now.

Brown said Alamance-Burlington Schools will keep purchasing foods locally when it proves more cost-effective - in some cases it is, and other times it's not.

On a recent afternoon, as students moved through the lunch line at Eastlawn Elementary in Burlington, the apples on the menu were grown at an orchard in Hendersonville, North Carolina. But with federal funds ending this fall, they probably won't have local produce as often next year.

Durham County Commissioners are calling on Congress to protect about $16 million in Head Start funds due to possible federal cuts.

Both and programs are dedicated to free early child care services. The programs support families with young children who are living in poverty, in foster care, or experiencing homelessness. Commissioners on Monday in support of maintaining the funds, during a board meeting.

“One big point I just wanted to talk about is the economic impact. Of course, child care, but many single moms are not able to go to work without child care,” said Terry David, the president of the North Carolina Head Start Association. “As a kid, I went to Head Start. I'm one of 17 children. I grew up and experienced poverty, but the program did its job.”

Without Head Start, children could lose access to meals, health and vision screenings as well as dental services, and the skills they need to enter kindergarten ready to learn, .

“We know that this is data-driven and it’s the most effective way for us to help children to be able to learn,” said Durham County Commissioner Wendy Jacobs. “This is how we give everyone a fair chance in our country to succeed in life.”

Durham County has more than 490 kids enrolled in Head Start and Early Head Start.

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.

��ҹ����’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.

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 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.

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, ," 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.

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 .

'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.

"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 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, .

Morehead-Cain also lauded Forero's disability activism, even inviting her to speak about protesting and accessibility on their .

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 ��ҹ����’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!”

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.

". 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 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 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."

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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.

��ҹ����’s Brianna Atkinson spent considerable time with both and tells their stories, one year later.

The morning of April 30 began like any other Tuesday for Brendan Rosenblum. It was the last day of the semester, and as always Rosenblum started it off in a political science class.

As his professor lectured, Rosenblum's phone started buzzing with text messages. It was from a group chat he joined that monitors antisemitic activity on UNC-Chapel Hill's campus.

The messages said police disbanded the pro-Palestinian encampment that had been on the Quad for the past couple of days, but a large group had returned and was protesting in the center of campus.

Rosenblum waited for his class to finish, ran home to grab his Israeli flag, and headed to Polk Place.

It was afternoon when he and four other students from the group chat made it to the protest. By the time they arrived, the crowd was hundreds of students and community members deep. Messages like "resistance is not terrorism," "Zionists off our quad," and "if you support Israel, you have blood on your hands," filled signs and sidewalks leading to Polk Place.

Rosenblum cleared his schedule for the rest of the day and sent a group message to his Jewish fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi, asking them to join him.

"You could see everyone was really passionate and everybody was here to support Palestine. Everyone was here to support the anti-war efforts that were going on," Rosenblum said. "I respected that, I still do, but I just felt that there were a lot of things that were misconstrued in support of Palestine that ended up being antisemitic and anti-Jewish. And not respecting the fact that Israel has a right to exist, and you can criticize the government without criticizing the Jewish people."

Rosenblum came to the protest to represent his Jewish identity. Before arriving, he made a pact with one of his friends: they'd hold the Israeli flag together but wouldn't speak to protesters unless they were approached first.

"No one that day during the protest came up to me and asked me what my beliefs are. All I had was an Israeli flag. And what happened? I was called a racist, a fascist," Rosenblum said. "They just assumed I was this horrible human being — and right there shows you why I was there."

As Rosenblum held his flag, people in the crowd started throwing items in his direction. Some chucked plastic bottles at his head, another sprayed water and yogurt on him, and others stole his flag and he had to chase them down.

Rosenblum kept holding the flag up, staying mostly on the outskirts of Polk Place. That was until a commotion started near the flagpole at the center of the Quad.

Protesters took down the American flag and replaced it with a Palestinian one. Shortly after, over a dozen police officers led Chancellor Lee Roberts to the flagpole, a folded replacement flag in tow. Officers pepper sprayed the crowd as Roberts put the American flag back up and counter protesters chanted "U.S.A., U.S.A."

After Roberts left the area, protesters attempted to take down the American flag again. A group, mostly made of fraternity students, rushed in to stop them. Among the mix was Rosenblum and several brothers from his Jewish fraternity.

"We're Jews, we're Americans, we're students," Rosenblum said. "There are certain values that we feel, and although other people might disagree with them, we're gonna stick to them. We didn't believe that the American flag should be taken down. I understand that's a valid form of protest, but we didn't agree with it. And so, we were gonna stand there holding it up proudly."

Rosenblum circled the group with his Israeli flag. He, his brothers, and several other fraternity students stayed there for two hours.

An image of the fraternity brothers went viral, setting off a nationwide fundraiser where nearly 16,000 donors raised over $515,000 that would go to throw the fraternity brothers a "rager." The national attention piqued the interest of Donald Trump’s campaign team, which would later invite several UNC-Chapel Hill fraternity members to speak at the Republican National Convention.

The viral image would also throw Rosenblum into a political media frenzy that largely ignored his Jewish advocacy and instead painted him as a conservative folk hero.

"People were making us these conservative frat boys putting down these liberal Hamas supporters and that's not what that day was — it's just not," Rosenblum said. "And it was a tragedy to me to see that kind of thrown out into the news.”

'It's important people have a voice'

Rosenblum isn’t a native North Carolinian, and he didn’t start his college career at UNC-Chapel Hill. He grew up in Clarkstown, New York, and started at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.

He was first intrigued by the small liberal arts school’s baseball program. He’s loved the sport since he was five years old, becoming a pitcher at age eight.

Those years of playing, however, took a toll on his arm. After 12 years of pitching, a bone in Rosenblum's elbow split in half. It took three surgeries over the course of four years to correct the injury, and even then he never fully recovered.

He pushed through the injury to play at Swarthmore but ultimately had to give up his dream of being a collegiate athlete.

"For a lot of college athletes, sports is an identity. When you lose that, it's like you're losing who you are," Rosenblum said. "When I realized baseball or the competitive part was kind of over, I had to sit back and figure out who I was and what I wanted to do in my life, my purpose. And I think Israel advocacy definitely ended up being a part of that."

His first experience with advocacy work was at Swarthmore, as a fellow for the Israel on Campus Coalition. According to the organization's website, its mission is to empower pro-Israel students and faculty by providing resources and support to combat antisemitism.

Rosenblum organized speaker events and crafted Instagram posts sharing educational opportunities for students on campus.

"Swarthmore was a very, in my opinion, anti-Israel campus. People didn't understand what Israel was, what it meant to be a Jewish person connected to Israel," Rosenblum said. "It was really hard to be pro-Israel, and it was really hard to support Israel in any way."

He and three friends also restarted the Swarthmore chapter of Students for Israel in 2020, with the goal of creating a safe space on campus for students with pro-Israel views.

"We felt it was important that people had a voice," Rosenblum said. "To us, the other side silenced that voice — accused us of being genocide supporters, accused us of being anti-human rights. When you have people that are openly doing that, no one wants to speak up."

Sophomore year came and Rosenblum decided he needed a change. He began to become overwhelmed by the advocacy work, and he didn't quite feel at home on such a small campus. So, he took a year off from school and started applying to bigger universities.

When Rosenblum got accepted into Carolina, he immediately committed. He saw the school as a vibrant community and was drawn to how passionate students and alumni seemed to be about being a Tar Heel.

He was also impressed by their Jewish student organizations on campus like Hillel and Chabad. He got involved with both after he started at Chapel Hill.

"Carolina is a super accepting campus. I've felt proud to be Jewish on campus," Rosenblum said. "(There's) other Jewish students taking the lead on bringing speakers, giving students the opportunity to voice their Jewish identity, or however they're feeling through different events. I think overall, Carolina's campus is a great place to be not just a Jewish student, but any religious student."

Rosenblum also kept baseball in his life. He couldn't play competitively anymore due to his injury, so instead he joined the club baseball team. There, he pitched for the first time in four years without any pain.

During his sophomore year, Rosenblum decided to get even more involved with Jewish life on campus by joining Alpha Epsilon Pi. Rushing as a 21-year-old was quite unusual, Rosenblum said, but he was used to being unconventional.

"AEPi really does represent those Jewish values and applies them to college life in the best way possible, and I think it's something beautiful," Rosenblum said. "I know people think fraternities are all 'rah rah, let's get drunk' but to me, this is a lot more than that. I've established some really meaningful connections. And I've learned about myself and who I want to be through experiences with them, like what happened on (April 30)."

'They had no idea who I was'

Leading up to the encampment, pro-Palestinian protesters had led several smaller demonstrations on the Chapel Hill campus. The protests picked up less than a week after Oct. 7, which Rosenblum said didn't give him and fellow Jewish students space to openly mourn the loss of their people on campus.

Rosenblum viewed the April 30 protest as a chance to take a stand for himself and other Jewish students. And when news reporters started calling after the fraternity flag photo went viral, he looked at it as an opportunity to amplify the hurt his people were feeling even more.

He started by speaking with local media outlets in the Triangle who had been at the protest. But he soon garnered attention from national conservative outlets like Fox News, the Washington Examiner, and NewsNation.

"When you're supporting something and you believe in something, it doesn't matter what happens (to you)," Rosenblum said. "Like, it's important for me to speak up, because if I have that passion where I cannot care what happens to me or I cannot care what is done to me for my cause, then it's something that I'll be willing to openly speak about."

Soon enough, his name and face were everywhere. Some outlets mentioned his Jewish heritage and Rosenblum attending the protest with an Israeli flag. Others largely ignored his Jewish identity and got the name of his fraternity wrong — focusing instead on patriotism and the upcoming $515,000 "rager."

Not long after Rosenblum's news appearances, his friends DMed him on Instagram, showing him that he was the new face of a .

The anti-protest campaign video was a montage of news coverage about fraternity students holding up the American flag. It included multiple clips from a Fox News interview, where Rosenblum told anchor Jesse Watters protesters had called him a white supremacist, fascist, and told him to kill himself.

The ad was ironic, however, considering Rosenblum planned to vote for then-candidate Joe Biden. He and his friends thought the mischaracterization was funny at first, but soon realized it spoke to a bigger issue.

"I'm a Jewish liberal American and that's a complex identity. I'm happy that's who I am, but they had no idea who I was." Rosenblum said. "They assumed just because we did a patriotic event, we were supporting the Republican cause. But it shouldn't matter whether you're Democrat or Republican — you should support America. And it doesn't matter if you're pro-Israel or pro-Palestine — you should support human life. Like it's not one or the other."

Trump would later invite members of AEPi, Pi Kappa Phi, and several other fraternities to speak at the Republican National Convention. Rosenblum did not attend.

'No one was there to get honored with a party'

Rosenblum also chose to skip out on another honorary event: Flagstock.

It started with a fundraiser on GoFundMe. John Noonan, a former military and defense advisor for Republican representatives, asked the public to donate money to throw the fraternity brothers a party.

He described the fundraiser as a "modest" attempt to buy the "Brohemians (that) protected Old Glory from the unwashed Marxist horde" a few kegs. Less than two days later, nearly 16,000 people contributed, raising $515,492.

Hundreds of people left comments commending the fraternity students for their actions that day. It was reminiscent of the overall reception Rosenblum's received since April 30, which he says has been "99% positive" feedback.

"To have Jewish students, to have Jewish families reach out and thank me for what I did, for what this fraternity did, that was amazing," Rosenblum said. "I'm really glad that I was able to at least uplift the voices of the Jewish people that felt silenced and felt that they couldn't speak up."

Rosenblum believes Flagstock, however, lost that intent.

The event ended up being on Labor Day and had all the fixings of a patriotic bash – barbecue, beer, cornhole, and country singers. But it didn't end up being the large, epic party organizers had promoted.

At the time, organizers they'd handed out 3,000 tickets to several fraternities and sororities and expected thousands to attend. Only about 400 people, including non-students, showed up. Still, organizers managed to spend all but $13,000 on the festivities, funds they said they later donated to fraternity-nominated charities.

"No one was there to get honored with a party, people were there to stand up for people that are suffering," Rosenblum said. "And how do you help people that are suffering? You give them aid. And we could have provided so much aid, but instead we're buying beers and we're buying cornhole boards instead. It really lost the meaning.”

Rosenblum had another idea: use the money to create dialogue spaces on campus. Students with opposing ideals, he said, could use these spaces to calmly express their views.

"It was a tragedy of miscommunication, disrespect to one another's humanity, villainization of the other, not understanding how to have proper dialogue — that's what that day was," Rosenblum continued. "When they asked us about it, we all wanted to donate it, and we didn't have a choice. It's really sad to think about the impact you could have had with all of that that just went to waste."

And while Rosenblum’s idea for funding dialogue spaces didn’t happen, he's been taking a class this semester that does just that.

'I was just someone that wasn't afraid to speak up'

Rosenblum spends every Monday afternoon in “Courageous Conversations: Israel and Palestine on Campus.”

The course has a couple of dozen students, some pro-Palestine and others pro-Israel. It lasts for three hours, which students spend listening to lecturers, reading current events, or debating with each other.

The class has become a label-free space for Rosenblum to both strengthen and question his beliefs, while fueling his longing for dialogue. But the most meaningful conversations happened outside of the classroom, in another country.

The class traveled to Israel for spring break. The university funded the trip, which was part of the course's curriculum. At the time, the U.S. Department of State labeled the area as high risk and had it under a level three travel advisory.

Rosenblum spent the time speaking with families living in the West Bank and eating Shabbat dinner with Jewish Israelis in Jerusalem.

"There's humanity in both the Israeli story and the Palestinian story, and we try to compare these humanities," Rosenblum said. "We try to compare pain, but both are painfully human. We have to acknowledge them for what they are and not try to compare them, that's how you move forward. This class has allowed (us) to look at that and then come to a conclusion without yelling in each other's face."

The class is taught in UNC's new School for Civic Life and Leadership. Faculty, students, and community members have criticized the school since its inception. UNC's Board of Trustees circumvented a typically faculty-led process to build the school, which . The Courageous Conversations class itself has also .

Rosenblum doesn't need the class to graduate, but he said it became a personal requirement after seeing and responding to the protest on campus last year.

"If you really care about what's going on in Gaza and you really care about the atrocities that are taking place, then you need to do it in a way that's receptive by people. To me, taking down the American flag, while it’s a completely allowable action, is not the way to do that," Rosenblum said. "Also, me standing there with an Israeli flag, with a bunch of people surrounding the American flag, might not be the best way to voice my qualms with the protests and my beliefs on the Israeli side."

'People want to paint me out to be something that I'm not'

In the year since the protests, Rosenblum's taken a break from advocacy work. He still attends Hillel or Chabad events but isn't involved in planning ones of his own.

He's spent his extra time exploring Franklin Street with his friends, bonding with his fraternity brothers, and pitching for the club baseball team. His grandparents came to see his last game, which ended with hugs and tears of reflection as they all realized that season of his life was over.

Next month, Rosenblum will graduate with a degree in political science. He took the LSAT a couple of weeks ago and plans to be in law school by fall next year. He isn't sure where that'll be but knows he doesn't want to return to Carolina.

If he had a chance to redo the last year, he wouldn't change anything.

He's proud of holding up his Israeli flag and believes that speaking with different media outlets is the best way to get his advocacy out to the most people. Plus, his friends, family, and community members know what type of person he really is — no matter what caricature others draw him out to be.

"I don't care what people have to say. I've learned if people want to hear your story and want to know who you are, they'll do the work to understand that," Rosenblum said. "I feel that I'm doing what's right, I'm sticking up for people who didn't have a voice that day and before that day. If people want to paint me out to be something that I'm not, then that's their freedom to do it. But it's also my freedom to speak up for myself and describe my story."

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