Communists on Campus

North Carolina's 1963 speaker ban law declared the state's public college and university campuses off-limits to ""known members of the Communist Party"" or to anyone who cited the Fifth Amendment. This work bares the truth behind the false image of the speaker ban's ostensible concern.

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The story behind one of the most serious encroachments on academic freedom enected by any state legislature; North Carolina's 1963 speaker ban law declared the state's public college and university campuses off-limits to ""known members of the Communist Party"" or to anyone who cited the Fifth Amendment in refusing to answer questions posed by any state or federal body. Oddly enough, the law was passed in a state where there had been no known communist activity since the 1950s. Just which ""communists"" was it attempting to curb? William J. Billingsley bares the truth behind the false image of the speaker ban's ostensible concern: the law marked a last-ditch effort by conservative rural politicians to quell the demands of the civil rights movement. Communists on Campus exposes the activities and machinations of prominent political and educational figures in an account that epitomizes the social and political upheaval of 1960s America.