UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp has issued a statement today apologizing to former Congressman Tom Tancredo, whose speaking engagement Tuesday night on campus ended abruptly in the midst of a student protest.

Thorp wrote that he was "disappointed" by the incident and called Tancredo today to apologize.

He wrote in part:

There's a way to protest that respects free speech and allows people with opposing views to be heard. Here that's often meant that groups protesting a speaker have displayed signs or banners, silently expressing their opinions while the speaker had his or her say. That didn't happen last night.

 

Here's the full text of his statement to the university community. 

A talk by former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo at UNC Chapel Hill spiraled quickly out of control Tuesday night when protestors disrupted the speech and sent Tancredo scurrying for cover.

As Jesse Deconto reports, Tancredo, who opposes in-state tuition benefits for illegal immigrants, only spoke for a few minutes before protestors broke a window at Bingham Hall.

Tancredo's appearance on campus was sponsored by the UNC-CH chapter of Youth for Western Civilization, a national group of students who oppose mass immigration, affirmative action and multiculturalism.