Yeah, Al Lowenstein was then teaching at state. And Shaw University had a
graduate who was the ambassadress of some African country to the United
Nations. So they invited her down to receive an honor of some sort. And
Al Lowenstein made arrangements for her to speak to his class as well,
as long as she was there. And then he took her to lunch at the Sir
Walter Hotel, and at the time the Sir Walter was "the" hotel in Raleigh,
and that's were the debutante call was held, and that's where the
legislators met for lunch. And here comes Al Lowenstein with this black
woman, while the sit-ins are going on, and they were not admitted, they
were turned away. But that pissed off some of the legislators. And I
always thought that
Page 21 that was why we had a speaker
ban. Cause we had no problem with Communist speakers; we didn't have
any. It was not an issue. So they passed a law saying that no public
university can extend its speaking facilities to people who are, 1,
known communists, 2, who plead the fifth amendment in regard to
subversive activities, or 3, advocate the overthrow of the government.
Those are the three categories. And in due course, the students, Paul
Dixon, who was the president of the student body, he and the head of the
Di Phi, and the Tarheel and the yearbook, and interfraternity council,
whatever you can think of, took the lead and they invited Aptheker to
come and speak, and Aptheker was a known communist. He had come back
from North Vietnam and they invited him to speak about his trip. And he
was turned away. And they had 5,000 students milling around to hear him,
and to see what doing. They were up in the trees and everywhere. And
then they invited Frank Wilkinson who was the head of the committee to
abolish the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and he had
pleaded the fifth amendment before some California committee on trees
and their subversion—Uncalifornian activities.
[Laughter] So he was turned away. So those were the, they now
have a case, and it now went to Sitterson, the Chancellor, and earlier
the governor who was the acting head of the executive committee of the
governors of the University system, earlier there had been a request to
hear Wilkinson and Aptheker, and there was a lot that went on, but in
any event, Sitterson said no. So they brought the students and they were
turned away. And then there was a suit against Sitterson. And Dixon,
Paul Dixon, the head of the student body, against Sitterson, the
Chancellor. Saying that it's unconstitutional. There was a guy named
McNeil Smith, who's a lawyer in Greensboro, who agreed to represent the
students. And he had been the editor of the Tarheel in his day, and was
in a very prominent law firm, and he agreed to do it. And he wrote to
about 50 other lawyers who were graduates of the university, and asked
them to sign on with him, and be
Page 22 the counsel of
record. And none of them would. Which is shameful. So McNeil—me, I was
then the president of the North Carolina ACLU, and Bill Van Alstyne, who
was a distinguished constitutional lawyer, professor at Duke, helped
him. And I filed a brief, amicus, friend of the court for the ACLU, and
Bill Van Alstyne filed a brief amicus for the AAUP. But it was really,
so there were three briefs, but there's a page limit, so one brief would
take care of these three problems, and the other would take care of the
other three problems. So it was one very big brief, exceeding the page
limit for one brief. So we argued, and I just checked it out the other
day and I didn't think I'd argued—but I had seven minutes, and Bill Van
Alstyne had seven minutes, and McNeil Smith had twenty minutes or
something.