Lee Harriss Roberts[1] (born 1968) is an American educational administrator who has served as the 13th chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since January 2024.

Alumni and board members have praised his commitment to athletics, particularly the hiring of 8-time Super Bowl Champion Bill Belichick as the UNC head football coach.

[7] Since 2019, Roberts has served on the corporate board of Variety Wholesalers, a retail-store company owned by Art Pope, a prominent conservative donor.

[3] Roberts described his motivation as stemming from a "family tradition of public service" and his deep commitment to North Carolina, which he first moved to at age 17.

[12] A month later, in February 2024, another op-ed was published by five UNC students titled "'Nonpartisan' Lee Roberts receives income from far-right megadonor’s company" highlighting a conflict between his claimed commitment nonpartisanship and his financial ties to conservative donor Art Pope.

[15] Alexander Denza, a UNC student activist and TransparUNCy organizer, questioned the motivations behind accelerated timeline of the search, which was initially expected to conclude by the end of the year.

One student leader called the protest "The People's Graduation," "to commemorate suspended seniors who were involved in the Triangle Gaza Solidarity Encampment.

Sue Estroff, a member of the UNC Faculty Executive Committee, stated weeks before the official appointment of Roberts, "I fear that the chancellor search is already over, and I don’t have a lot of confidence in the process.

"[16] Roberts was condemned by nearly 900 faculty and staff members in a joint letter, which criticized creating a "militarized and unsafe climate" on campus.

"[28] Two days later on December 11, 2024, Roberts and Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham announced that Belichick had been hired on a five year contract.

This was his process, at the end of the day, working closely with Bubba and other members of the committee.. but Chancellor Roberts deserves virtually all of the credit, ultimately, for taking this risk and making this commitment.

[32] In her column titled "For UNC, institutional neutrality is complicity with Trump and ICE" in The Daily Tar Heel, student journalist Maggie Mead referred to Lee Roberts' response as "reprehensible.