Laura Saavedra Forero poses for a portrait outside the Morehead Cain Foundation on Jan. 24. Saavedra Forero had the prestigious Morehead Cain Scholarship “terminated” on Jan. 6.n Jan. 6.
Laura Saavedra Forero describes herself as an activist before anything else.
Her work in disability advocacy, environmental justice and in support of Palestine is extensive, but the 21-year-old holds a lot of titles. She’s a senior, a neuroscience major and until recently, part of the prestigious Morehead-Cain Scholarship.
On Jan. 6, over a year since she was first called into a meeting with the scholarship president regarding a political Instagram-story post, Saavedra Forero received a letter informing her the Morehead-Cain Trustees had decided to terminate her scholarship.
Saavedra Forero faced a number of disciplinary and criminal charges, including resisting a public officer and impeding traffic, for her protesting last spring, but all but one were dropped. The details around losing her scholarship remain unclear to her to this day.
“I never would have thought that a foundation that is so well established and prestigious would not have a formal process that would allow for due process for me,” she said.
The Morehead-Cain Foundation said in a written statement to The Daily Tar Heel they do not disclose any confidential information about current or former scholars. They denied numerous requests for an interview, additional information or a statement from the Morehead-Cain Board of Trustees.
“A student’s scholarship will be terminated upon conduct that is, in the sole judgment of the trustees, incompatible with the standards of the Morehead-Cain Program,” the statement said. “Such conduct may include violations of the Foundation’s nondiscrimination and anti-harassment policy, provisions of the University Honor Code, state or federal law, as well as any behavior that causes the trustees to question a scholar’s personal integrity or fitness to represent the Morehead-Cain community.”
Then-sophomore Laura Saavedra Forero attends a zoom meeting inside the Morehead Cain Foundation for the Campus Y where she serves as co-president on Nov. 14, 2022.022.
Since 1951, the Morehead-Cain has selected classes of incoming students who embody their four pillars: leadership, character, scholarship and physical vigor. It is the oldest merit-based scholarship program in the nation, with over 3,300 alumni.
In her application, Saavedra Forero said she wrote about her activism, citing her work surrounding climate justice, the Black Lives Matter movement and for the Latino community in her area. She said in her interviews she talked openly about her use of “nonviolent direct action,” her chosen form of protest method.
“I never hid who I was or what I did,” she said. “I always made it very clear, throughout my entire college application process, that if a program or a university did not want me for who I was at my core, and that is someone who organizes for the community, then I did not want to be there.”
According to the scholarship program’s website, the Morehead-Cain program offers tuition along with additional funding opportunities, programming for leadership development and four structured summers for scholars who choose to participate.
“I think it allowed for a lot of dreaming and a lot of things that I haven’t even thought were possible,” she said.
Saavedra Forero said at first, she felt supported as she did her best to live into her commitment as a scholar and an activist.
When a fire-drill at her residence hall left her stuck in her dorm room for 32 hours, she mobilized press and campus activists to start a years-long campaign calling for more accessibility at the University. She was elected Campus Y co-president and organized a sit-in on the South Building steps to pressure the administration into addressing its lack of accessible infrastructure. Her work was featured on the Morehead-Cain Foundation’s “Catalyze Podcast” in October 2022 when she other Campus Y co-president were brought on to talk about accessibility and advocacy.
Former Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz sits outside of South Building with then UNC sophomore Laura Saavedra Forero on Feb. 24, 2023. Saavedra Forero spent 32 hours outside South Building advocating for greater accessibility on UNC campus.
She said things started to change in March of her sophomore year, when the foundation invited Republican Congress member Tim Moore to an event.
A group of scholars, including Saavedra Forero, found the invitation of Moore to be offensive. In response, they attended the event holding signs criticizing his legislation and handing out flyers. After the event, she had a meeting with scholarship president Chris Bradford and another scholar about their choice to protest.
Saavedra Forero recorded the meeting, along with a number of meetings with Bradford and other foundation-members. Because North Carolina is a one-party consent state, the recordings were legal, even though Bradford was not aware of them. The Foundation was presented with the selected quotes from the recordings in advance of this article’s publication, and chose not to respond.
According to the recording, Bradford used the meeting to criticize two scholars’ choices to protest the event, and questioned their methods. After her interaction with Bradford that day, Saavedra Forero said she was a little on-edge, but it never crossed her mind that her advocacy moving forward would cost her the scholarship.
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The statement from the Morehead-Cain foundation says grants for scholars are renewed only one semester in advance to ensure scholars are continuously meeting the foundation’s expectations. The decision to renew the scholarship is decided at the “sole discretion” of the foundation’s seven trustees. Neither Saavedra Forero nor any of the scholars and alumni interviewed for this article have ever had any direct contact or communication with any of the trustees.
In November 2023, the night of the scholar banquet, Saavedra Forero received a text from Bradford asking they meet.
According to Saavedra Forero’s recording of the meeting, Bradford had received phone calls from “dozens” of people about her conduct. He then pulled out a picture of a graphic Saavedra Forero had posted on her Instagram story, and asked if she recognized it.
The cartoon was connecting the coffee chain Starbucks with the violence in Gaza. It depicted a hand, with a bracelet displaying the Israeli flag using an espresso machine to make coffee in a Starbucks coffee cup, except there are dead bodies in the machine and instead of coffee, blood is coming out.
UNC junior Laura Saavedra protests with Starbucks Workers United outside of the Carolina Inn on Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023.
Bradford said the image was Blood Libel, an antisemitic trope used by Nazi Germany during World War II claiming Jewish people used the blood of non-Jewish children for religious rituals. He then said that she had called other scholars out for their conduct, and was disappointed she wasn’t meeting her own standards.
“You have called people Nazis, now you are behaving like one,” he said in the recording.
Later that day, Bradford sent her an email with his summary of events. In it, he alerted her to the fact that her scholarship may be in jeopardy.
“I am very clear that you have a right to free speech, and I do not believe that anyone has a right to not be offended,” he wrote in his email. “But I am equally clear that this scholarship is a privilege, and that the behavior of scholars should be a model for the behavior of others on campus.”
An alumnus of the scholarship, who asked to remain anonymous out of concern for their safety and potential retaliation, said watching the foundation discipline Saavedra Forero was painful. They said that the process by which she lost her scholarship seemed especially personal.
“I think there was a moment in time where Laura’s boldness went from inspiring to threatening the Foundation,” they said. “And their only understanding of how to react was to assert dominance in this relationship, which is to remind Laura that she is being paid for in large capacity by the Foundation.”
During Winter break, Bradford asked Saavedra Forero to meet to “set expectations” for the coming semester and then he emailed her a letter in the official Morehead-Cain stationery.
“In each of the past two terms, you have, in the name of ‘activism’ made choices that have undermined the welfare of others,” the letter stated.
The letter also listed four activities that Saavedra Forero had to agree to abstain from moving forward: “ad-hominem” attacks toward individuals, spreading “propaganda,” harassment directed at individuals and activities that disrupt others individuals ability to participate in campus activities.
Saavedra Forero called Bradford and another representative from the scholarship on Jan. 17 to clarify what the letter meant. In her recording of the Zoom, she asks if it’s possible to lose the scholarship even if she followed the renewed agreement.
“Absolutely,” Bradford responded.
Saavedra Forero signed the new letter, and went into the spring semester cautious about what activism she took part in. She participated in the encampment on Polk Place with her conversation with Bradford in mind.
“I think the biggest power imbalance to this day is the lack of knowledge and evidence that I was given,” she said.
Two current Morehead-Cain scholars, who requested to remain anonymous out of concern for their scholarships, said Saavedra Forero was not the only scholar present at the encampment, nor active in advocacy work for Palestine.
“Morehead-Cain scholars are always, and have always, been an active part of the UNC community,” one anonymous scholar said.
On April 30, UNC Police followed Chancellor Lee Roberts onto the site of the disbanded encampment to put the U.S. flag back up, as protesters had taken it down. Multiple protesters reported injuries from the police, including Saavedra Forero who was trapped under a barricade by Officer Rahsheem Holland. She says she did not hear from the Foundation about the event, though photos of her being knocked over circulated on social media.
UNC Police remove barricades from Polk Place as they approach the flagpole with then Interim Chancellor Lee Roberts to remove the Palestinian flag raised by protesters and restore the American flag on Tuesday, April 30, 2024.
A week later, Saavedra Forero attended an event by South Building organized by Students for Justice in Palestine and participated in the march that attempted to block Provost Chris Clemens’ car from exiting the parking lot. Like many of the protesters present, Saavedra Forero yelled at Clemens and the other administrators present.
A few days later, Saavedra Forero was informed that she was charged with “impeding traffic” and “resisting a public officer.” She said she was the only participant charged with impeding-traffic. She was also given a formal charge by the UNC Honor Court and the EEAC for her conduct.
Saavedra Forero said she received an email from Bradford soon after getting the notification about her charges, asking her to answer a series of questions. She responded, defending her choices.
Catherine Scott, a sophomore Morehead-Cain scholar, was with Saavedra Forero on May 8, and said she thinks the choice to charge her is part of a larger pattern of targeting by UNC Police due to her status as a wheelchair user.
“Regardless, in my opinion, nonviolent charges that are commonly leveled at protesters aiming to for societal change should have no impact on scholarship status from an organization that claims to value leadership based in courage and action,” Scott said.
On July 24, Saavedra Forero received notice via a formal letter that she was suspended from the program moving forward. This meant for the fall semester she would not receive any funding or be able to participate in scholar activities.
In August, the Honor Court and EEAC charges against Saavedra Forero were dropped, and she informed the Morehead-Cain of such. She also sent them a letter from her lawyer explaining that she would enter a plea deal to do community service so the last of the criminal charges are dropped. A few months later she sent a letter to the Trustees prior to their meeting to plead her case and explain her situation.
In that time, Students for Justice in Palestine organized a walkout in October, during which some protesters vandalized University buildings. Saavedra Forero attended the walkout, but couldn’t enter the buildings. A few weeks later, she was served with a warrant for any material on her phone as she had been identified at the event.
Saavedra Forero said her identifiability was one of the most frustrating parts of her experience with the Morehead-Cain because as a wheelchair user, she couldn’t take the same measures as other scholars to obscure her identity while protesting.
“I think that is significant to the targeting and repression of my speech, of my actions, and fairly ironic that is the basis of Morehead-Cain’s attack on their own scholar,” she said.
In serving her with the warrant, she said officers knocked her out of her chair, and she was given a citation for resisting an officer. The charge was dismissed soon after. At the end of the semester, she received a letter from Bradford saying it was “highly unlikely” that she would regain her scholarship. It cited the recent interaction she had with the police.
When she got conformation in January that her scholarship was gone, she said she was disappointed, but not surprised. To this day, she says she’s not exactly sure what parts of her conduct cost her the scholarship.
“It’s difficult for me to know what I would have changed,” she said. “But in terms of being steadfast and completely committed to liberation, there’s nothing I would change. I know that is what my ancestors would want, and I know that this was the bare minimum.”
According to the statement from the Morehead-Cain Foundation, scholars are expected to notify the Foundation if they violate the scholar expectations. Saavedra Forero said she wasn’t aware of any potential violations for her conduct last spring, especially considering how many other scholars participated in protest.
Laura Saavedra Forero poses for a portrait outside the Morehead Cain Foundation on Jan. 24. Saavedra Forero had the prestigious Morehead Cain Scholarship “terminated” on Jan. 6.
“Morehead-Cain encourages scholars to model productive engagement on the issues of the day and expects scholars to take ownership of missteps, address such actions with transparency, and to communicate proactively with the Foundation,” said the statement.
The anonymous alumnus said the lack of transparency from the Foundation strips scholars of their agency.
“It is hard to make decisions when you don’t know what the ramifications might be,” they said. “That doesn’t mean that people won’t still make those choices. I would hope that people still choose justice and community and liberation when they can and as often as they can, but it does change the equation for a lot of people.”
The two scholars present at the encampment echoed those concerns, and spoke to the chilling effect Saavedra Forero’s termination had on the scholarship community.
“I have heard from a lot of underclassmen who are worried and are not going to protests out of fear that their scholarship could be in jeopardy,” one of the scholars said. “Which is really worrisome to me because a lot of scholars are brought in because of our activism.”
The Foundation denied numerous requests for an interview with Bradford and for a statement. The Trustees, when presented with the specific information of the story, said they could not provide any further information.
As a second semester senior, now saddled with the cost of two semesters she thought were paid for, Saavedra Forero says she’s reconsidered her decision to come to UNC.
“If I knew what I know now about both the University and the Foundation’s approach to repression and free speech and controlling and surveilling, I probably would have never taken it,” she said. “But there’s some things you don’t know until you get there.”
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enterprise@dailytarheel.com
Aisha Baiocchi is the 2024-25 special projects editor. She previously served as the 2023-24 enterprise managing editor and a senior writer on the University desk.
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