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"Political tampering with the educational process can, over a relatively brief period, drastically lower the quality of the higher education affected. Legislative censorship, once begun, carries an invidious threat of future proscriptions, and inevitably stirs fears in the minds of both faculty and students that expression of unpopular sentiments may produce reprisals against them. Further, to secure and retain faculty members of high quality we must compete in a nationwide market. It is an inescapable fact that any legislative curtailment of free expression on a campus is a black mark against the institution in the eyes of the overwhelming majority of the best university teachers in America - teachers who are, nevertheless, anti-communist by strong intellectual conviction. We recognize and deeply appreciate the great efforts made by the 1963 General Assembly to provide adequate support for the University and for higher education in general; but, despite the improvement effected, we still have grave difficulties in competing for faculty members. This additional handicap could be disastrous.

"There ar many learned societies of national and international character. A number of these have met in Chapel Hill, in the ordinary course of events many more would desire to do so, and some at this moment have Chapel Hill under consideration. The programs of these meetings are not arranged and their speakers are not selected by the host school. No learned society of standing would seriously consider allowing the host institution to interrogate and possibly blackball its duly selected speakers. They will not meet in Chapel Hill if the University lays down any such condition. And many of the fihest teachers will not join or long remain members of a faculty at an institution which these learned societies will not consider as a place to meet. This tends further to lower the prestige of an institution known to be under this kind of legislative restriction.

"At this heavy cost to the institutions and to the general quality of higher education in this State, what positive purpose can be accomplished by the statute? The student who is not permitted to hear a speech on his campus may still read quotations from the speaker in the newspaper, may see and hear him on a national news telecast, and may read any books or articles he has written. The student may take advantage of an opportunity to visit a private institution and hear the speaker. A student may also, of course, hear the speaker at any off campus spot in the same community where the school is located. The prohibition itself will incite curiosity and give the person banned a larger student audience than he would otherwise have had.

"If any author is dangerous as a speaker, he is more dangerous as an author, for his printed words are more permanently available. Is there not danger that the General Assembly, once embarked on this course, will ban books from libraries and otherwise undertake to police the ideas to which a student may be exposed? Indeed, a ban which operates only against speakers on the campus is so clearly inadequate as a devise for insulating the student mind (assumed by the banners to be naively susceptible) that, rationally, it must be either abandoned or extended.

"The above discussion is necessarily predicated on some implicit assumptions as to what the General Assembly intended the 1963 statute to mean. However, in fact, many questions inhere in its interpretation. What significance is to be attributed to the fact that, whereas the title of the statute refers to 'visiting speakers,' the text of the statute refers more broadly to 'any person'? The statute prohibits use of 'facilities' for speaking purposes. This University owns not only auditoriums, but also classrooms, dormitories, a campus, a hotel, a telephone system, and a television station (carrying, among other things, national news programs). Are all of these embraced? The statute bans those known to advocate 'overthrow of the Constitution.' Is this equivalent to 'overthrow of the government'? Is advocacy of radical change by constitutional amendment included? (There is no mention in the statute of 'force, violence or other unlawful means. ') Examples could easily be multiplied. This vagueness is one reason for questioning the constitutionality of the statute; but, more important for present purposes, such vagueness makes enforcement of the statute a most difficult business, frought with possible legal pitfalls.

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