The report from Carolina Meadows

Friends of William Brantley Aycock, 91, who has lived at Carolina Meadows for 16 of the years since he retired from a distinguished career as a law professor and administrator at UNC-Chapel Hill, cannot forget his many contributions to the university, its students and faculty.

In March he received a citation from The North Caroliniana Society that was delivered before more than 100 friends and admirers at the George Watts Hall Alumni Center.

A graduate of N.C. State University and holder of a master's degree in history from UNC-Chapel Hill, Aycock taught and coached football at Greensboro High School. With an army commission earned in college ROTC, he was called to active duty early in World War II. He trained troops at U.S. bases, rose rapidly in rank and, along with a planeload of other lieutenant colonels designated to replace officer casualties, flew to Europe and saw action as a battalion commander with Gen. George Patton's Third Army.

Aycock received the Bronze Star, Silver Star and a Legion of Merit. Eventually he retired from the Army Reserve with the rank of colonel.

He had barely shed his uniform when he was admitted to the UNC School of Law two weeks after the 1945 fall semester had begun. As he neared graduation at the top of his class in February 1948, he was invited to join the law school faculty.

"Soon I was teaching classes to some of my former classmates," he said. "I had planned to go to law school, and then go home to Selma to practice with my daddy. He didn't get to law school until he was 40, and he became a county judge. I used to go to court with him, and I knew all the lawyers in Johnston County. But he lost his health and I didn't get to practice with him."

In 1951, Aycock served as a special assistant to Frank Porter Graham on a United Nations mission to negotiate peace between India and Pakistan. Through no fault of the North Carolinians, the two countries passed up this and many other opportunities to settle their differences.

Another major challenge came in 1957, when Aycock was appointed by UNC system President William Friday to become chancellor for UNC-Chapel Hill and thus the top official there after the president.

In the early 1960s, tensions were rising across the South in the face of growing militancy by civil rights advocates. Students in Greensboro staged one of the nation's first lunch-counter sit-ins. On the last day of its 1963 session, without debate, prior notice or hearings, the North Carolina legislature passed the Speaker Ban Law. This act prohibited state universities from allowing "known communists," or anyone who "advocated the overthrow of the Constitution" to speak on campus.

"My wife heard of it on the radio," Aycock said. "I called Bill Friday with word this law had passed. Governor Terry Sanford was possibly the only U.S. governor who had no veto power, and the legislature had adjourned. President Friday and I decided we would put on an education program about the dangers of the law."

Aycock and his colleagues thought the law dangerously vague by its failure to define a communist, and they considered it an attack on free speech and academic freedom.

"Among the people we had to educate were the university trustees," Aycock said. "The trustees, not unanimously but most of them, went on record opposing the bill."

The faculty at Chapel Hill and the dean of the law school delivered strong statements on the harm the law would do. Aycock spoke frequently around the state. He framed his speeches so the university news bureau could circulate them to newspapers.

"The press was very important," Aycock said.

Opponents of the law hoped that the General Assembly would rescind it, but in the end it took a lawsuit to defeat it. With Paul Dixon, president of the UNC-Chapel Hill student body as a plaintiff, a three-judge federal court in Greensboro nullified the law.

Some alumni maintain that up there with Aycock's other successes as chancellor was his appointment of Dean Smith as head basketball coach. In a 36-year career, Smith led his teams to 879 wins against 254 losses.

Aycock returned in 1964 to his first love: teaching and writing about the law. On reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70 in 1985, he stepped down from full time teaching, but continued to add to a long list of published writings on the law.