Protests broke out on Tuesday night when a former U.S. congressman, Tom Tancredo, began to deliver an anti-illegal immigrant speech at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The News & Observer reported.

Several people in the 150-person crowd yelled profanities and displayed banners before the speech, which was organized by a student group opposed to illegal immigration. The police escorted a few people from the room, while other students urged the protesters to let Mr. Tancredo talk, the Raleigh, N.C., newspaper reported. Officers also released pepper spray in a hallway outside the room and threatened to use Tasers to try to quell throngs of other protesters trying to get in.

When Mr. Tancredo finally began to speak, protests flared anew, and someone broke a window in the classroom. At that point, officers stopped the event and escorted Mr. Tancredo from the room.

The question of whether illegal immigrants may enroll at North Carolina’s community colleges has been a politically charged issue in the state in recent years.

Mr. Tancredo, a former Republican representative from Colorado and onetime presidential candidate, said he’d never been silenced by protesters before, adding, “They are what’s wrong with America today. … When all you can do is yell epithets, that means you are intellectually bankrupt.”

The university’s chancellor, Holden Thorp, said in an e-mail message to the campus today that he had apologized to Mr. Tancredo by telephone. He also said that students involved in the protest could face Honor Court proceedings or even criminal charges, pending an investigation. —Megan Eckstein