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"We are fully aware that a state university is a creature of a state, that it receives its money from the public treasury, that its exixtence depends upon political considerations. We are aware also, however, that a peculiar virtue of the American system is that its state universities can be free and, indeed, that they cannot render the State the benefits for which they were created in the first place unless they are free to conduct fair and open discussion on all ideas.

"As those who have been called for a time to be the guardians and trustees of an institution of such noble post and high purpose, we are humbled by the dimension of our responsibility. We stand in the train of a beneficent heritage and at a crisis in the undergirding tradition. Since 1789 when the destiny of the nascent University was entrusted by the General Assembly to the hands of forty leading citizens of the State with the injunction to fit the rising generation for 'an honorable discharge of the social duties of life', successive generations have gone to the University to fit themselves for lives of individual fulfillment and social usefulness. The fruit of the conception and the continued willingness of the General Assembly to secure the trustees in their trust i a commonwealth that has been singularly blessed with enlightened servants of the public good, and a people's university that, despite vicissitudes of fate and fortune, has stood and yet stands among the most respected in the land. Such is the character of what our forebears and predecessors did. You we - are called to do it now."

Mr. Frank Taylor stated that he felt the Board had a very grave responsibility confronting it; that the General Assembly would not intentionally do anything to hurt or damage the University, but that sometimes our best friends make mistakes, and particularly when things are considered hurridly, and in this instance perhaps our best friends who have made what we think is a mistake, would be most readily the ones to reconsider; that the Executive Committee in view of the responsibility it felt and in view of the concern evidenced by the administration and the faculties, felt they owed to the Board a responsibility in connection with this matter because it is a matter for the entire Board. He referred to the group meetings held by the administration throughout the state with members of the Board, and stated that the Executive Committee felt a responsibility to present for consideration of the Board a resolution which the Committee believes expresses the concensus of opinion at these group meetings.

The resolution is as follows:

WHEREAS, the 1963 North Carolina General Assembly enacted a statute "to regulate visiting speakers at State supported colleges and universities"; and

WHEREAS, the statute violates an essential principle of university existence to which The University of North Carolina has adhered steadfastly for more than a century and a half; and

WHEREAS, the faculties and officials throughout the entire University are uncompromisingly opposed to the statute; and

WHEREAS, the statute is detrimental to the standing of The University among institutions of higher learning, and adversely affects its ability to retain and continue to attract faculty members of excellence; and

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