Chronology

Daniel Pollitt's law review article calls the Speaker Ban constitutionally suspect

Pollitt's article Campus Censorship: The North Carolina Visiting Speakers Law, written for the December 1963 North Carolina Law Review, argued that the Speaker Ban raised serious problems of free speech, self-incrimination and due process. The Daily Tar Heel called it the first known legal analysis of the law by a lawyer outside the attorney general's office.

Paul F. Sharp serves as chief administrator of UNC at Chapel Hill

Sharp was chief administrative officer of the university at Chapel Hill from September 1, 1964 to February 15, 1966. His records document the state's speaker ban law and programs in medical education, and he left to become president of Drake University.

John E. Greenbacker Jr. leads the Dialectic and Philanthropic literary society

The federal court's findings in Dickson v. Sitterson list Greenbacker as president of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Literary Society, one of the recognized student organizations whose officers brought the Speaker Ban suit. The Daily Tar Heel likewise named him as Di-Phi president among the ten student leaders who wrote to Chancellor Sitterson on March 1, 1966.

People: J. Carlyle Sitterson

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

Students for a Democratic Society invites Frank Wilkinson and Herbert Aptheker to speak at UNC

The UNC chapter of Students for a Democratic Society invited Frank Wilkinson, who had pleaded the Fifth Amendment when questioned in California about Communist activities, and the Communist theoretician Herbert Aptheker to speak on campus. After the trustees barred both men, Student Government under Paul Dickson, the Daily Tar Heel, the Carolina Forum, the YMCA and YWCA, the Di-Phi and the Carolina Political Union joined SDS in renewing the invitations.

Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

People: Frank Wilkinson · Paul Dickson III · Herbert Aptheker

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies · University YMCA

Dickson, Nicholson and McCrary invite Herbert Aptheker to speak on campus

Three of the students who later sued invited Aptheker to speak at Chapel Hill on March 9, 1966 under the sponsorship of Student Government, the Carolina Forum and the Daily Tar Heel. Aptheker accepted two days later.

Part of Wall speeches at the campus line, 1966 · 19 events

People: Paul Dickson III · Herbert Aptheker

Gary Waller joins a student panel on the Speaker Ban in Memorial Hall

The Daily Tar Heel reported that student body president Paul Dickson presided over a noon meeting of students and faculty in Memorial Hall, with a panel of four that included Waller, Carolina Conservative Club president Wilson Clark and the SDS faculty advisers Joseph Straley and Lewis Lipsitz. The meeting adopted a resolution about four and a half hours before the trustees' executive committee voted 8 to 3 to bar Herbert Aptheker from speaking.

People: Paul Dickson III

Subject: Memorial Hall

UNC trustees' executive committee bars Frank Wilkinson and Herbert Aptheker from the Chapel Hill campus

Meeting in Governor Dan K. Moore's office in Raleigh, the executive committee of the UNC board of trustees voted 8 to 3 to deny university facilities to Aptheker and Wilkinson and suspended all other invitations covered by the speaker ban law until the full board adopted rules. Earlier that day more than 800 students and faculty at a Memorial Hall meeting had backed Aptheker's right to speak.

People: Paul Dickson III · Herbert Aptheker · Dan K. Moore

Subject: Memorial Hall

Nicholson criticizes SDS over the Aptheker invitation while backing the principle

The Carolina Forum chairman called the Students for a Democratic Society invitation to Herbert Aptheker ill-timed and planned for sensationalism, and said the Forum had joined the invitation only in support of the principle of free speech.

People: Herbert Aptheker

J. Carlyle Sitterson serves as chief administrator of UNC at Chapel Hill

Sitterson was the chief administrative officer of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from February 16, 1966 to January 31, 1972. His records as chancellor cover desegregation and the federal HEW lawsuit, the Speaker Ban law, protest against the Vietnam War and campus unrest.

Stuart Matthews and Gary Waller write to Chancellor Sitterson inviting Herbert Aptheker

On the day the full board of trustees adopted new speaker regulations, Matthews and Waller wrote to Acting Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson for the UNC Chapel Hill chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, asking that Herbert Aptheker be allowed to speak on campus about the war in Vietnam on March 9. The letter set out his publications, speaking engagements and his Supreme Court passport case.

Part of Wall speeches at the campus line, 1966 · 19 events

People: Gary Waller · J. Carlyle Sitterson · Herbert Aptheker

The UNC Board of Trustees adopts visiting-speaker procedures under the amended Speaker Ban

Acting under G.S. 116-199 and 116-200, the full Board of Trustees adopted procedures requiring recognized student groups to clear invitations to covered speakers with the chancellor. The students complied with them when they renewed the Wilkinson and Aptheker invitations, and the court later found the procedures as vague as the statute.

Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

People: William C. Friday · J. Carlyle Sitterson

Herbert Aptheker gives his evening talk at the Community Church

Kept off campus, Aptheker gave his evening talk to about 350 people at the interdenominational Community Church on Purefoy Road. Paul Dickson then announced a Free Speech Defense Fund to pay for a lawsuit.

Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

People: Paul Dickson III · Herbert Aptheker

Subject: Community Church of Chapel Hill

Herbert Aptheker speaks to students across the McCorkle Place wall

At noon Paul Dickson led Aptheker, invited by SDS and the Committee for Free Inquiry, onto McCorkle Place near the Confederate monument, where campus police chief Arthur Beaumont halted Dickson's introduction and warned of arrest. Aptheker crossed the low stone wall to the Franklin Street sidewalk and spoke to a crowd estimated at 2,000 to 3,000 on the campus side.

Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

People: Paul Dickson III · Herbert Aptheker

Subject: McCorkle Place (with the Davie Poplar)

Student leaders ask the chancellor to let Wilkinson and Aptheker speak on campus

Paul Dickson and the heads of Carolina Forum, the YMCA, the YWCA, Di-Phi, the Carolina Political Union and SDS wrote to Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson asking that Wilkinson speak on March 23 and Aptheker on March 25, or on later dates.

Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

People: J. Carlyle Sitterson · Paul Dickson III · George E. Nicholson III · Robert S. Powell Jr. · James A. Medford · Eunice H. Milton · John E. Greenbacker Jr. · Eric Van Loon · Gary Waller · Stuart Matthews

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies · University YMCA

Bob Powell wins the runoff for UNC student body president

Powell, the Student Party candidate, beat University Party candidate Teddy O'Toole by 2,401 votes to 1,993 in the runoff, two days before the Speaker Ban suit was filed.

Students and the two speakers file Dickson v. Sitterson against the Speaker Ban

Minutes after Sitterson refused the students' request, Paul Dickson and eleven other student leaders, joined by Wilkinson and Aptheker as plaintiffs, sued Sitterson, President William C. Friday and the trustees in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. Attorney McNeill Smith took the case without fee.

Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

People: J. Carlyle Sitterson · Paul Dickson III · Herbert Aptheker · William C. Friday · George E. Nicholson III · Robert S. Powell Jr. · James A. Medford · Eunice H. Milton · John E. Greenbacker Jr. · Eric Van Loon · Gary Waller · Stuart Matthews · Frank Wilkinson

Chancellor Sitterson makes student leaders erase a taped meeting

The Daily Tar Heel reported that Paul Dickson, Eric Van Loon and George Nicholson met Acting Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson in his office for about thirty minutes, and that Van Loon carried a tape recorder. When Sitterson found the conversation was being recorded he made them play the tape back and erase it, saying it upset him that they had not mentioned it.

People: Paul Dickson III · George E. Nicholson III · J. Carlyle Sitterson

Powell is named to the student-faculty committee on visiting speakers

The Daily Tar Heel listed Bob Powell first among the members of the student-faculty committee on visiting speakers, in the same story that printed the students' request to the chancellor.

A three-judge federal court hears arguments in Dickson v. Sitterson at Greensboro

Judges Clement F. Haynsworth, Edwin M. Stanley and Algernon L. Butler heard 45 minutes a side in the U.S. Middle District courtroom. McNeill Smith called the law vague, ambiguous, unconstitutional and void on its face; W. T. Joyner Sr. answered for the University that the 1965 amendment had abolished the original ban. The court then held the case under advisement for a year.

Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

People: Paul Dickson III

Governor Moore recommends that the state and the trustees not appeal the Speaker Ban ruling

Three days after the decision, Governor Dan K. Moore said the state should not appeal the federal court's finding that the law was unconstitutionally vague and recommended that the trustees not appeal either, voicing his hope that they and the administration would keep the campuses from being exploited as outlets of discord and strife.

Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

People: Dan K. Moore

The UNC trustees adopt six temporary speaker rules in place of the voided regulations

A week after the ruling the trustees approved, over Senator Tom White's plea to proceed calmly, six interim rules on the manner of a speaker's appearance (a senior faculty member presiding at the chancellor's request, public forums, balanced views, audience questions, sponsorship by recognized student groups), with the items the court had struck removed, pending further study by the executive committee on March 8.

Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

People: William C. Friday · J. Carlyle Sitterson

The trustees' executive committee asks Governor Moore to name a subcommittee on a permanent speaker policy

Meeting in Charlotte, the Board of Trustees' Executive Committee voted to ask the governor to appoint a subcommittee to study speaker regulations and recommend a permanent policy to the full board in May. Senator Tom White, who agreed with the state's decision not to appeal, said the board had resolved nothing; President Friday hoped the matter would be settled by May.

Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

People: William C. Friday · Dan K. Moore

Frank Wilkinson speaks on the UNC campus in Howell Hall

Three months after the ruling, Wilkinson gave his first permitted talk on the UNC campus, speaking on HUAC in Howell Hall at the invitation of the Carolina Political Union to about 35 people.

Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

People: Frank Wilkinson

Frank Wilkinson returns to speak in Manning Hall

Wilkinson, then 74, spoke in Manning Hall on FBI surveillance and U.S. policy in Central America at an event sponsored by the Carolina Committee on Central America.

Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

People: Frank Wilkinson

Herbert Aptheker returns to speak at UNC in Greenlaw Hall

Twenty-five years after he was kept off campus, Aptheker spoke to students and faculty in Greenlaw Hall in a visit arranged by anthropology professor Don Nonini.

Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

People: Herbert Aptheker

Daniel Pollitt retires from the UNC law faculty

Pollitt, by then a Kenan professor of law, retired from teaching in 1992 after more than 35 years at UNC. The Daily Tar Heel credited him with founding the North Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, opposing the Speaker Ban and helping to integrate the university.

Subject: UNC School of Law

Speaker Ban marker dedicated at the McCorkle Place wall

On University Day a bronze marker naming the twelve student plaintiffs was dedicated at the wall where Wilkinson and Aptheker spoke, a gift of Anne Dickson Fogleman and Robert Dickson.

Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

People: Holden Thorp

Subject: McCorkle Place (with the Davie Poplar)