Opposition to the Speaker Ban and efforts to overturn it
Friday describes in detail why he was opposed to the Speaker Ban law. In addition to his general support of academic freedom, Friday believed that the circulation of ideas, particularly those that represented extreme and oppositional points of view, were crucial to the intellectual environment of a university. In addition, he describes his interactions with the Board of Governors, the General Assembly, and Governor Dan Moore during the controversy and towards the overturning of the bill in 1968.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with William C. Friday, November 26, 1990. Interview L-0145. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- WILLIAM LINK:
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I don't think I asked the question very well, because what I
meant was, was there a background, you think, of differences of opinion
between yourself and the Board?
- WILLIAM C. FRIDAY:
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Yes.
- WILLIAM LINK:
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That you were aware of?
- WILLIAM C. FRIDAY:
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Well, I knew where Mr. White would like to have come down. And Mr.
Barber, I think he was still on the Board. Mr. Taylor. I knew that I was
skating on thin ice. But I had no option. I had to do it. And I wanted
to. Because I thought this was another case of eroding the law away a
little more. You just keep chipping, and keep chipping, and keep
chipping. But when they came out flat, as flat as they categorically
know, then I knew it was all over. [unclear]
was closed.
- WILLIAM LINK:
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Do you thinkߞhow do you explain it? Do you think the Board and
the Executive Committee was going to [unclear]
- WILLIAM C. FRIDAY:
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I think they really believed it. I really do. Their
positionߞnot the Board, but those who voted on it. But there
position was to keep these people off the campus, doesn't
infringe on anything. Your still free to do what you want to do in the
classrooms. We just don't want this kind of person speaking
on the campus. My answer to that was, "That's
precisely why you have the rule." You have people that speak
out that way, who are contentious. Who are argumentative. Who bother us.
Because societies must change. You have to know what the options of
change are. The one's who are extremist, you never go with,
but you need to know what their thinking, because somewhere between
where you are, and where they are, is where your going come down. And
how would you understand that, if you don't hear his case? I
said, "I don't agree with these people anymore than
you do. But that isn't the issue." Not accepting a
doctrine, what your trying to say is this is a free country. And most of
all, universities are places where freedom should be spoken. It stood
for it. You've got to keep these places open. I
couldn't win. We've been over that argument so
many times, they've just grown weary. And what I really
believe in their hearts, is they wish we'd never brought the
thing before. But Carlyle Sitterson and I knew that you can't
stop a movement like this. It's got to go. So, we just
marched right in and we knew what was going to happen. I did. I felt it.
And it hurt. [Laughter] Because those
people I had known as well as I knew the back of may hand. But they got
under a lot of local pressure, Bill, and that was one of the things. You
know, they go back home and they hear all of this stuff that, they just
said, "We're not going to do anything with the
University. We're not going to hurt it."
"You don't want that kind of fellow speaking on the
campus, you know." Can't you hear itߞthis
I'm sure is the kind of monologue that
went on thousands of times. Different levels of intensity. But different
dimensions of it. But always the same argument. "We just
don't need our students hearing that stuff." Today
it wouldn't be a racist argument, it would be something else.
Somebody coming in on some sex case, or some pornography argument. Or
some abortion business. The issues in that sense changed, but never the
principle.
- WILLIAM LINK:
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Could it also have been that although many of these people were great
supporters of the University over the years,
[unclear] they didn't exactlyߞtheir
thinking ߞ
- WILLIAM C. FRIDAY:
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Well, the people who brought it on in the first place, you're
absolutely right, they neverߞwell, let's put it
this way. They always felt comfortable with the University until some of
these things happen. It was always a where they wanted their children to
go to. They knew that it was right. That it was good. Not exactly
knowing why specifically. But, you know, Bill Friday's over
there. And Tom Pearsall's on the Board. And Watts is on the
Board. And Victor's on the Board. Everything's all
right. You don't have to worry. Now that element stayed
together. It's when the strategy that was worked out by
Senator Godwin, and those who supported him. And they got to some
members of the Board that didn't operate at the level these
others did, and pulled them away. And put them under intense personal
pressure. Because keep in mind, that Trustee membership was determined
by the same General Assembly that passed the law. And that was speaking
with a voice that a lot of them heard. Some of them were up for
reelection. I'm sure of that. And that gets to be a problem,
you know.
- WILLIAM LINK:
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What about the governors during this crisis?
- WILLIAM C. FRIDAY:
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Well, I had no problem with Governor Dan Moore. He was the principle all
the way through. He was a judge himself. He understood this. He did
everything he could to keep it in balance. To keep itߞhe was
very helpful to me. He really was. He stayed out of it, in the sense of
not using his office unduly to influence it. He had no sympathy at all
for the speaker's. I'm sure of that. And he
didn't think that they ought to be speaking on the campus.
But he didn't step across the line. And he has
neverߞhe never once turned me down on any conversation about
this whole quest. About where we should go. He did not vote in that
Executive Committee vote, because there was not ties, so he
didn't have to vote. He sought more clearly that most people,
the damage this was doing to the University. Because he was getting it
from everywhere. And being a personality that dealt in the national
scene, he was getting it from there too. And it's like today
now, when you takeߞI can't go anywhere in the
United States today, without the first question coming up,
"What's happened to North Carolina?" And
that's a media identification. But, Dan Moore, from my point
of view, he was an ally. Although we were not of the same mind, as to
the academic freedom. His was more of a judicial orientation. Mine was
the academia. He never once used any effort to influence me at all. He
left me alone. And he was always very respectful, as I was to try and be
to him. And that sort of relationship is much to be cherished. Because
there have been lots Governor's who try to, you know, to box
you in.