The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, North Carolina, or simply Carolina) is a public, coeducational, research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. The university is the oldest in, and flagship of, the University of North Carolina system. First enrolling students in 1795, UNC is the oldest public university in the United States and is one of the original eight schools known as a Public Ivy.

Academically, all undergraduates receive a liberal arts education and have the option to pursue a major within the professional schools of the university later in their undergraduate career. In both teaching and research, UNC has been highly ranked by publications such as BusinessWeek and U.S. News & World Report. Along with Duke University in Durham and North Carolina State University in Raleigh, the university forms one of the corners of the Research Triangle.

UNC has a strong history in athletics, most notably in men's basketball and women's soccer. The North Carolina Tar Heels share rivalries with other Tobacco Road schools and have provided many olympians to United States teams. The student newspaper The Daily Tar Heel has won national awards for collegiate media, while the student radio station WXYC provided the world's first internet radio broadcast.

History

main: History of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chartered by the North Carolina General Assembly on December 11, 1789, the university's cornerstone was laid on October 12, 1793, near the ruins of a chapel, chosen due to its central location within the state. Beginning instruction of undergraduates in 1795, UNC is the oldest public university in the United States and the only one to award degrees in the 18th century.

During the Civil War, North Carolina Governor David Lowry Swain persuaded Confederate President Jefferson Davis to exempt some students from the draft, so the university was among few in the Confederacy that managed to stay open. However, Chapel Hill still suffered the loss of more of its population during the war than any village in the South, and when student numbers did not recover, the university was forced to close during Reconstruction from December 1, 1870 until September 6, 1875.

During the 1960s, the campus was the location of significant political protest. Prior to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, protests about local racial segregation which began quietly in Franklin Street restaurants led to mass demonstrations and disturbance. The climate of civil unrest prompted the 1963 Speaker Ban Law prohibiting speeches by communists on state campuses in North Carolina. The law was immediately criticized by university Chancellor William Brantley Aycock and university President William Friday, but was not reviewed by the North Carolina General Assembly until 1965. Small amendments to allow "infrequent" visits failed to placate the student body, especially when the university's board of trustees overruled new Chancellor Paul Frederick Sharp's decision to allow speaking invitations to Marxist speaker Herbert Aptheker and civil liberties activist Frank Wilkinson; however, the two speakers came to Chapel Hill anyway. Wilkinson spoke off campus, while more than 1,500 students viewed Aptheker's speech across a low campus wall at the edge of campus, christened "Dan Moore's Wall" by The Daily Tar Heel for Governor Dan K. Moore. A group of UNC students along with Aptheker and Williamson filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court, and on February 20, 1968, the Speaker Ban Law was struck down.