Anti-Israel protesters disrupt UNC meeting
The interruption happened at the UNC Board of Trustees committee meeting
The UNC Board of Trustees (BOT) committee meeting was interrupted by anti-Israel protesters near the onset of the meeting held on March 27.
The first interruption happened around 16 minutes in and the second at just before the 22 minute mark.
The protesters were not caught on camera, which remained on the members of the board instead.
The first interruption came when an unknown male yelled out, “Perrin Jones. You are an anesthesiologist. No doubt by now you are…”
It is unclear from the video of the meeting what the man was trying to say.
“Sir… Sir…you are interrupting a public meeting,” said Chair Dave Boliek. “I am going to ask you to leave and if you do not you will be arrested. I’ve already made that announcement.”
“So I am asking you to leave,” said Boliek over the protester who continued to shout out from the gallery. “I am asking you to leave, sir. This is not the forum for that. This is simply not the forum.”
Boliek directed the vice chancellor of student affairs to look into whether the man who interrupted was a student or not and asked the disciplinary actions be applied if he was a student.
The second interruption wasn’t picked up by the video or microphones, but became apparent when Chair Boliek stopped the meeting and said, “Ma’am, you are interrupting a public meeting.”
“You were present for the announcement. I am asking you to leave,” said Boliek. He added she would be arrested if she did not comply.
The woman, unseen on camera, yelled out something about the “rogue state of Israel,” and that the BOT needed to “defund the genocide that is taking place in Palestine.”
The woman also yelled, we need to “Protect Palestinians at all costs!”
Boliek again asked the vice chancellor of student affairs to determine if the woman was a student and to take disciplinary action.
Trustee Marty Kotis followed Boliek’s remarks, commenting “we have seen repeated interruptions of university business.”
“The south building was disrupted, Bari Weiss’ speech was interrupted as well and we’re getting interruptions today,” said Kotis. “And it will continue until we discipline the folks that are doing this and I’d like to know what we’re doing to discipline these students because it seems like all that ever happens to them is they leave the room after they’ve disrupted.”
Kotis went on to cite Policy 1300.8, which he said, “doesn’t contemplate that you can disrupt a meeting for a certain period of time and then be asked to leave.”
“It [the policy] actually calls for three levels of steps leading up to expulsion,” said Kotis. “Explusion is actually an option on day one.”
Kotis followed up by saying students need to be held accountable and should be showing their student ID card when asked. He also said that if this is “one group” that is continuing to disrupt on campus that the status of the group needs to be looked at and perhaps even “ban or defund them.”
Boliek agreed and told the audience again that if anyone was going to disrupt the meeting again that they should leave now or he would instruct campus police to arrest them.
Here’s the full meeting video:
More To The Story
The interruption of the UNC BOT meeting was not the first. As mentioned by Trustee Kotis, Bari Weiss’ event was also interrupted by anti-Israel protesters.
Near the end of February, anti-Israel protesters blocked traffic in Raleigh, resulting in 26 arrests.
The arrests followed a Raleigh City Council surprise vote on a one-sided “cease fire” resolution put forth by some of the same protesters who were arrested for impeding traffic. The vote failed.