University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | |
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City: | Chapel Hill, North Carolina |
Type: | Public |
Sports: | baseball, basketball, cross country, fencing, field hockey, football, golf, gymnastics, lacrosse, rowing, soccer, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field, volleyball, wrestling[1] |
Colors: | black, blue |
Mascot: | Tarheels |
Endowment: | $2.3 billion[2] |
Website: | http://www.unc.edu/ |
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (or UNC), is a North Carolina public university. It is one of the most liberal colleges in the nation, with a leftist tradition that goes back at least a half-century to a time when communist speakers on campus were accepted. Today the school is unbalanced by gender, with 59% of its students female compared with only 41% male. The campus has a large number of graduate students, who are typically very liberal. Out of an overall student body of 28,567, nearly 11,000 are graduate students.
The school is located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It ranked #28 in US News's 2008 "National Universities: Top Schools" list.[3] It is a constituent of the University of North Carolina system.[4] The school was chartered in 1789.[5]
The campus is notoriously hostile to free speech that challenges liberal orthodoxy. Former Congressman Tom Tancredo, for example, was not allowed to speak at an event on April 14, 2009, leaving one commentator to conclude:[6]
“ | It's really very simple — the illusion of free speech is welcomed at UNC as long as those views expressed match their own. The demonstrators were actually a great example for all to see just how corrupt and imbalanced the university has become when it comes to creating an educational environment for real, balanced and open views about any important public interest topic. Balanced free speech is simply dead at UNC, period. This is a sad testimony to witness. | ” |
North Carolina currently has 12 men's and 14 women's sports teams.[1] The football program has won 12 bowl games (while losing 13).[7] The men's basketball program has won 4 national championships,[8] and the women's has won 1.[9]
In 2008, a UNC professor Albert Harris angered his biology students when he suggested babies suffering from Down Syndrome should be aborted.[10] Harris claims he made the statement to "spark discussion".[11] Harris stated that although the view was his moral opinion, he would not follow it if presented with that scenario.[10][11]