WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY
Time: 7 p.m. today
Location: Hanes Art Center
To learn more about the Speaker Ban controversy and other UNC protests, click here to visit the ""I Raised My Hand To Volunteer"" online exhibit.
Hanes Art Center will host a lesson in UNC's history of free speech tonight"" which organizers hope can help students draw parallels to contemporary campus issues.
Communication studies professor Gorham ""Hap"" Kindem is presenting a documentary he made in 2005. The film"" titled ""Beyond the Wall"" chronicles the fight by UNC students to repeal the Speaker Ban Law that passed the N.C. General Assembly in the '60s.
The ban prohibited members of the Communist Party or people who had used the Fifth Amendment to avoid Congressional investigations of un-American"" activity from speaking on campus.
Members of the campus community have drawn parallels between the law and issues involved in Tuesday's protest that prevented former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo from speaking"" which is why Kindem decided to show it.
""I think this is timely in that the topic is directly related to the current events about free speech on campus" he said. It even involves some of the same participants" notably the current SDS chapter.""
Kindem said he was inspired to make the documentary by campus events in 2005 like the controversial selection of ""Approaching the Qur'án: The Early Revelations"" as the summer reading book" as well as what he saw as civil liberties infringements by the USA Patriot Act.
The event will feature a panel with three people from the speaker ban era: James Medford former president of the Campus Y and roommate of then-Student Body President Paul Dickson who led the charge to repeal the law; Jerry Carr former graduate student and head of UNC's chapter of Students for a Democratic Society; and Daniel Pollitt emeritus professor of constitutional law and former faculty chairman.
All three were instrumental in the speaker ban fight" an issue that dominated campus.
""There was a lot of different campus issues" and the speaker ban was one of the biggest" Medford said.
In addition to bringing a bad light to UNC, Medford said the ban also caused greater complications such as threatening the library's accreditation. The ban eventually was repealed when students brought a case through the N.C. courts on First Amendment grounds.
Medford said he sees a lot of the same issues that were present on campus in the '60s reemerging.
What we've got here is the different side of the same coin"" he said. You have to let people speak. It's only when people are denied the right to speak that their opinions become more important than they probably are.""
Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.
