North Carolina Speaker Ban

Paul Dickson (right) beside Frank Wilkinson (left) before addressing the crowd on Franklin Street

On June 26, 1963, the North Carolina General Assembly passed the Act to Regulate Visiting Speakers, later known as the Speaker Ban Law. The law forbade anyone to speak on a University of North Carolina campus who was a known member of the Communist Party, or who was known to advocate overthrow of the Constitution of the United States, or who had invoked the Fifth Amendment in respect to communist or subversive connections. The law was rushed through in the closing hours of the legislative session with virtually no debate.

To challenge the law, two speakers were invited to campus who were communists under almost any definition. When university officials refused to allow them to speak on campus, students from the university, led by Student Body President Paul Dickson, filed a federal law suit that ultimately declared the Speaker Ban Law invalid due to vagueness.

Background

In the early 1960s, social unrest over segregation was increasing in parts of North Carolina, and protesters would often make themselves highly visible to the media and lawmakers. Some students and faculty from the university community joined in these protests. While the university had no official involvement with these demonstrations, a link formed in the public perception.

To many members of the conservative General Assembly, it seemed that the university was stirring up unrest among blacks, and in the Cold War atmosphere of the early 1960s, communism was feared to be at the root of all of it. Some state legislators believed that if communist agitators were inciting racial unrest and spreading their poisonous message through the university, the right legislation could put an end to it.

Passage

In the waning hours of the 1963 General Assembly session, Rep. Phil Godwin introduced the bill, then called for a suspension of the rules to expedite its passage through the state House of Representatives. There were no committee hearings and no advanced notice that the bill would be brought up, and only several of the bill's supporters had copies of the legislation. The bill passed three readings in four minutes.

After passing in the House, the bill was immediately taken over to the North Carolina Senate chamber. Clarance Stone was presiding over the Senate at the time. When one senator spoke briefly against the bill, Stone responded by saying "No, it sounds like a real good one to me, I think we ought to get this one through." When several other members of the Senate began to rise to speak against the bill, Stone took off his glasses and said he saw no more people wanting to speak. He then called for the voice vote and declared the bill had passed.

Governor Terry Sanford was against the bill, but at that time the governor of North Carolina could not veto legislation.

Criticism of the law

In addition to the arguments that the Speaker Ban Law violated the First Amendment's right to freedom of speech, many commentators pointed out the difficulties in determining exactly who was a known communist. Additionally, the law was ridiculed by pointing out that Confederates such as Robert E. Lee would have been prohibited from speaking because he advocated the overthrow of the United States government.

Legal challenge

After the bill had become law, many students, faculty, and administrators actively opposed the ban, seeing it as an attack on freedom of speech. In order to challenge the law, students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill led by Student Body President Paul Dickson invited Herbert Aptheker and Frank Wilkinson to speak on the edge of the campus. As expected, the university refused to allow either of the speakers to give their speeches on campus. Instead, they addressed the assembled crowd from across the stone wall that separates the university from the town of Chapel Hill.

The university’s refusal to allow the men to speak on the physical campus was used as the basis for a lawsuit against the university and the State of North Carolina. On February 19, 1968, a three judge federal district court in Greensboro deliberated for 10 minutes and then declared the speaker ban invalid due to vagueness.

References

• I Raised My Hand to Volunteer University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• The 60s in North Carolina PBS
• Finding Aid for the Speaker Ban Law Collection University of North Carolina at Greensboro
• Selected Bibliography University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill