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faculties are made up largely of men and women who have by-passed the practical world with its emphasis upon material gain in favor of the more modest but no less demanding world of thought. They are people who like to teach, or they would not be doing it. They like to study, to do research and in some cases to write books that often times bring fame but seldom bring fortune. They are people with inquiring minds, minds that range, minds that are free. They do not want and will not long tolerate the building of fences around their minds. These people value intellectual freedom above all else and once they become convinced that it is being denied them, they will move to places where this valued freedom will be assured them. Such a migration can only be disastrous to a university for Gresham's Law also operates in the academic world.

"I object to this bill because of its air of condescension toward our students. It is only natural that they react with resentment to the pointed implication that they are completely lacking in any powers of discernment or discrimination. They see with more clarity than you might suspect the curious situation whereby this bill has been given support even from graduates of the University of North Carolina - men and women who enjoyed the privilege of attending an unfettered university and who most certainly did not, in the process, become subversive themselves - but who are somehow unwilling to extend that same privilege to today's students. Believe me when I say that the irony of this situation is not lost upon them.

"But most of all, ladies and gentlemen, I object to this bill because, unwittingly or not, it strikes at the very heart of the University: at its basic mission - its inescapable responsibility - to seek the truth. If it is to discharge this responsibility with reasonable effectiveness, it is imperative that the University investigate every basis area of human knowledge. I need hardly remind you that only a free university can so function.

"It is my personal opinion that the University of North Carolina has been a great institution not because it has been the richest institution in our region but because it has been the freest. Its traditional freedom grew out of the fact that it has been relatively well protected, as any true university inevitably must be, from the pressures of prevailing fads and from the rapidly-changing and often times capricious currents of public opinion. I believe that this protection has historically been provided by this Board of Trustees; and I further believe that this service stands as one of the most important ones that the Board has rendered.

"Believing these things to be true, I urge you, ladies and gentlemen, to take whatever action you deem most appropriate to regain that which has been lost through this legislation and to restore to the University of North Carolina that enviable degree of freedom that has been its proud heritage in days past and which remains the indispensable condition for its continued preeminence."

President Friday:

"We have presented these examples because we believe that they illustrate convincingly the seriousness of the problem that this law creates for the University. These have arisen in the short time since the law was passed. Already the exclusion, by law, of vital sources of knowledge from our University has begun. Yet, we have by no means felt the full impact of embarrassment and detriment that will ensue if something is not done, because our students and our faculties and the world of scholars whose respect is quite essential to our success have watched and withheld judgment until the Board of Trustees had the chance to act.

"Harmful as the law is to our actual functioning as a university, and to our standing among institutions of higher learning, there is yet another difficulty more vague and possibly even more damaging in its ultimate effect. The adoption of a law that purports to remedy a supposed Communist influence upon our campuses has implanted in the minds of some citizens of our State the disturbing notion that such an influence actually exists and is deliberately defended.