487

481

At the same meeting, by formal vote, the faculty requested the undersigned,
constituting the Facuity Advisory Committee, to appear before the Executive
Committee and present the faculty's position.

The Faculty resolution speaks for itself. We strongly endorse it. There
has been no opportunity to submit for formal faculty approval the addidonal
thoughts expressed herein. They are consistent with the resolution and we believe
that they are shared by an overwhelming majority of the members of our faculty,
but they are not submitted as official faculty statements.

It is imperative that the Aptheker invistation not be cancelled. The administra-
tion, the faculties and the students have joined to affirm their dedicated adherence
to the principle of freedom of expression. The Trustees cannot disregard that
stand without doing incalculable - and irreparable - harm to the University.

We recognize that Communists, once in power, suppress freedom of expres-
sion; and that Communsts out of power use that freedom in an attempt to gain
enough power to destroy it. There is, however, no present danger that speeches
by American Communists, on or off campuses, will propel them to power. If the
Trustees act to suppress freedom of expression, such action is in line with
Communist, not with American tenets; and by such action the Trustees, in the
name of preserving freedom, will have destroyed it. The death of freedom is a
profound tragedy, whether the trigger is pulled by a Communist or by a Trustee.

With virtual unanimity the faculties of all great American colleges and
universities believe that freedom of expression is a vital necessity both for
excellence in higher education and for the preservation of American democracy.
It is the cornerstone upon wh ch our country was founded and has been built - and nowhere should th s be recognized more readily than in North Carolina, where
our forebears refused to ratify the Constitution of the United States until it was
accompanied by the Bill of Rights.

This great American right of free expression should alone be enough, if
properly presented and proudly defended by the Governor and the Trustees, to
convince North Carolinians that the Aptheker invitation should stand. But these
are subsidiary considerations which are also most persuasive.

(l) Authorized spokesmen for private universities and colleges, in and
out of this State, have repeatedly made it clear that it is their policy to allow
freedom of expression, and that they have no substantial fear that controversial
speakers will hoodwink their students into subversive thoughts and activities.
Surely students on State-supported campuses are in no greater need of protection
than students at Duke, Wake Forest and Davidson.

(2) One of Aptheker's companions on the trip to Hanoi - a member of the
Yale University faculty - was recently allowed to state his views on a nation-
wide news telecast by CBS. So far as we know there has been no move to ban
CBS telecasts from our campuses, nor do we know of any North Carolina
listeners who were inspired by his remarks to emulate him. Should the Trustees
of the University be more timid then those responsible for the operations of a
commercially oriented broadcasting system?

(3) An invitation to speak on the Chapel Hill campus has been issued to the
founder of the John Birch Society (who is, incidentally, an alumnus). This is
conclusive proof that our advocacy of freedom of expression is not motivated
by any desire to promote the cause of the radical left.

(4) A speaker banned from the campus may appear elsewhere in Chapel
Hill - as happened while the speaker ban legislation was in effect. If such
safeguards as panels, question periods and faculty chairmen are necessary or
desirable, they obviously cannot be then guaranteed by the Trustees or by any
University authority. Nor is it in the least feasible to backstop a campus
speaker ban by prohibiting students from attending off-campus functions.
Indeed, the campus ban is most likely to increase the off campus attendance.
In this respect, a Trustee speaker ban actually enhances rather than minimizes
any danger that students may be mislead into Communist sympathies.

(5) This last-mentioned danger is minimal in any event. It is true that
ideas remain, as hey have always been, the most explosively dangerous of all
the inventions of civilized man. But the modern college or university student
is not more gullible than his elders, and he is not easily misled by speakers
with axes to grind. (Who can speak more authoritatively about this than we,
whose ideas have been efficiently ignored by generations of students?) The
best possible way to insure that a student with normal intellectual curiosity