Anti-Israel demonstrators gathered at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s campus on Saturday ahead of the commencement ceremony.

A protest was held at the campus’ Peace and Justice Plaza, where the campus chapter for Students for Justice in Palestine celebrated suspended seniors who participated in the protest at UNC, according to ABC 11.

“We know the movement for the liberation of Palestine is guided by sacrifice and deep love for the people,” Students for Justice in Palestine at UNC said in an Instagram post. “Amnesty for our students is tied to the steadfast struggle against the genocide in Palestine, and we invite you to join us in taking the university back together. BRING YOU KUFFIYEHS. BRING YOUR JOY. BRING YOUR VOICE.”

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After the celebration, the group marched through the campus, carrying picket signs and tents, to the Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower near Kenan Memorial Stadium, hours before the 7 p.m. graduation ceremony.

Protesters marched over to the South Building, which houses the Chancellor’s office, where some chanted and others threw red paint on the stairs and placed red handprints on the pillars. Some protesters also wrote on the building using chalk.

A group of several dozen protesters were on the lawn circling the Old Well, where they began chanting as students and families took graduation photos. The demonstrators then held a 15-minute moment of silence in honor of the thousands who have been killed in Gaza since October, when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, leading to military retaliation from Israeli forces.

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SEE PHOTOS: Vandalism on campus

“There are a lot of students who are brutalized and arrested and are not able to graduate today,” student protester Samuel Scarborough said at the demonstration. “Students that have been banned from campus. And so the response has been no business as usual, no justice, no peace.”

UNC graduate Alicia Buckminster said: “As a UNC graduate, we were taking our 2020 graduation away from us in high school. So, I just hope and pray that tonight we’ll be able to graduate as a class and celebrate it the correct way.”

Police later moved protesters away from the area.

SEE PHOTOS: Commencement continues

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The protest comes after a recent demonstration sparked a clash between anti-Israel protesters and law enforcement at an encampment that was set up in Polk Place. The university said 36 protesters were detained after failing to follow orders to disperse. 

Six of the protesters detained at Polk Place were arrested and charged with trespassing and were later released on a written promise to appear. Three of the protesters arrested are UNC students, while the other three are not affiliated with the university.

A Catholic school in North Carolina was legally allowed to fire a gay teacher who announced his marriage to another man on social media a decade ago, according to a federal appeals court ruling, reversing a judge’s earlier decision.

A panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, on Wednesday reversed a 2021 ruling stating that Charlotte Catholic High School and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte had violated teacher Lonnie Billard’s federal employment protections against sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

The school said Billard was not brought back as a substitute teacher because of his “advocacy in favor of a position that is opposed to what the church teaches about marriage,” according to a court document.

U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn ruled that Billard, who worked full-time as a teacher for a decade until 2012, was a lay employee for the limited purpose of teaching secular classes. The judge said a trial would still need to be held to determine appropriate relief for him.

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A 2020 ruling by the Supreme Court also found that Title VII protected workers who were terminated for being gay or transgender.

Circuit Judge Pamela Harris, however, wrote in Wednesday’s ruling that Billard fell under a “ministerial exception” to Title VII that courts have taken from the First Amendment that protects religious institutions in how they treat employees “who perform tasks so central to their religious missions — even if the tasks themselves do not advertise their religious nature.”

Billard, who primarily taught English as a substitute after returning from retirement as a drama teacher at Charlotte Catholic High School, fell under this exception because Charlotte Catholic expected teachers to integrate faith throughout the curriculum, Harris wrote, adding that the school’s apparent expectation that Billard be prepared to teach religion as needed speaks to his role in the school’s religious mission.

“The record makes clear that (Charlotte Catholic) considered it ‘vital’ to its religious mission that its teachers bring a Catholic perspective to bear on Shakespeare as well as on the Bible,” Harris wrote. “Our court has recognized before that seemingly secular tasks like the teaching of English and drama may be so imbued with religious significance that they implicate the ministerial exception.”

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Circuit Judge Pamela Harris wrote in Wednesday’s ruling that Lonnie Billard fell under a “ministerial exception” to Title VII. (REUTERS/Axel Schmidt)

Billard began working at Charlotte Catholic in 2001, the year after he met his now-husband. He announced their decision to get married shortly after same-sex marriage was made legal in North Carolina in 2014, and he filed a lawsuit challenging his termination in 2017.

The American Civil Liberties Union and a Charlotte law firm that helped Billard file his lawsuit said Wednesday’s ruling was “a heartbreaking decision for our client who wanted nothing more than the freedom to perform his duties as an educator without hiding who he is or who he loves.”

The joint statement said the ruling threatens to infringe on the rights of LGBTQ+ workers by “widening the loopholes employers may use to fire people like Mr. Billard for openly discriminatory reasons.”

An attorney for a group that defended the Charlotte diocese praised the ruling, calling it a “victory for people of all faiths who cherish the freedom to pass on their faith to the next generation.”

Lonnie Billard announced his decision to get married shortly after same-sex marriage was made legal in North Carolina in 2014. (iStock)

“The Supreme Court has been crystal clear on this issue: Catholic schools have the freedom to choose teachers who fully support Catholic teaching,” Luke Goodrich of The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty said.

Attorneys general from nearly 20 Democrat-leaning states and lawyers from Christian denominations and schools and other organizations filed briefs in the case.

Circuit Judge Paul Niemeyer joined Harris’ opinion, while Circuit Judge Robert King wrote a separate opinion saying he agreed with the reversal but also questioned the use of the ministerial exemption. King wrote instead that Charlotte Catholic fell under a separate exemption in Title VII for religious education institutions dismissing an employee.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A Democratic senator told Fox News former President Trump can win in November and said the Republican Party needs to be made “grand again” while the Democratic Party must be made “responsible again.”

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who announced in November that he will not seek re-election, said he “most certainly” believes Trump can achieve a victory in the 2024 election. West Virginia will vote in its primary election Tuesday. 

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The red state senator told “One Nation” host Brian Kilmeade on Saturday he comes from an area of “pragmatic,” “hardworking people.”

“They don’t want government jumping on your back, telling you what to do and making it harder for you. They believe in freedom and democracy,” he said. “They believe in all of that. They believe in giving a helping hand, but they believe you ought to get off your butt and do something sometimes.” 

The lawmaker, who rejected the idea of being a “Washington Democrat,” expressed concern about the direction of both political parties. 

“The parties have gone so extreme, and somehow we’ve got to bring the Grand Old Party — make it grand again — and make the Democrat Party responsible again,” he said. “I think they both lost their ways, and they’re just listening to their own chatter here in Washington, but none of this makes sense. We don’t live our lives like this.” 

Manchin said he’s spoken to President Biden about the direction the nation is heading in.

“I’ve told the president, I said, ‘You’ve got to be careful,’” he said. “A lot of these bills and a lot of the direction, the executive orders, people that came from the generation that I’ve come from and that you’ve come from is basically John Kennedy asking not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. We continue down this path, and people are starting to ask, ‘How much more can my country do for me?’ That’s not who we are. It’s not how we have the country we do, and it’s not what I’m willing to sit back and watch it be taken away. So, I’m going to be fighting for basically how much more can I do for my country, and I appreciate what my country has done for me.”

The senator also weighed in on the country’s response to the Israel-Hamas war and “misinformation” that is leading people to declare their “allegiance and support for a terrorist organization like Hamas.”

“I… lived through the Vietnam time period when we saw an awful lot of protests, but the protests I saw back then, whether I agreed or disagreed, the protests I saw were trying to make America better. These protests are trying to basically tear down the fabric of America, and there’s no way that we should tolerate it.”

Manchin also said he had an encounter with Cindy McCain, widow of the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and that she told him last week she had 30 trucks “full of food” that were “hijacked.”

“… she says, ‘I had 30 trucks full of food — 30 trailer trucks that were hijacked by Hamas. Their own people — they wouldn’t let them feed their own people.’”