JOCK LAUTERER ’ 67
From his vantage
point in a tree on
Franklin Street, Jock
Lauterer ’ 67 captured the crowd at
the Wilkinson
speech. For want of
a wide-angle lens
Lauterer spliced two
shots together —
the iconic Speaker
Ban photo on the
righthand page and,
on the left, one that
Lauterer says had
never been published before
October.
fully defended a federal lawsuit that solidified the University’s commitment to free
speech. The chancellor had spoken passionately against the Speaker Ban; the president
of the state’s universities had held secret
strategy meetings with Dickson. But in the
public light they had to grit their teeth and
uphold the law or risk losing their jobs.
Though the principals in the fight
against the Speaker Ban are convinced it
wasn’t so much the threat of Communist
indoctrination as it was civil rights protests
and the totality of student activism in this
time, the new law would have the effect of
limiting what could be heard on a campus
that grew up around the free exchange of
ideas. And it would have to be challenged
by the students themselves.
Caught by surprise
The chancellor first heard about “An Act
To Regulate Visiting Speakers At State Supported Colleges and Universities” from his
wife by phone. Grace Aycock had been listening to the radio and immediately called
her husband, Bill ’ 37 (’ 48 JD), to ask
whether he had heard the news. He had not.
‘Freedom
of speech’ —
freedom
of students to
hear anything
and everything
that might
enlighten them
— seems like
such an
uncomplicated
idea. It remains
an issue with
complications
aplenty
to this day.
CAROLINA ALUMNI REVIEW
23
