from using
             state dollars to encourage or inhibit the teaching or
             discussion of certain ideas on individual campuses. While
             politics has occasionally encroached, history has shown that
             when such limitations of academic freedom occur, they can
             undermine the reputation of the university and of the state it
             serves. In North Carolina itself, the legislature's ban on
             Communist speakers on state campuses in the 1960s -- which
             threatened the system's accreditation and was eventually
             overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court -- shadows the current
             controversy. The University of North Carolina system's
             president, Molly Corbett Broad, emphasized that history in a
             public letter to the Board of Governors.
             Second, micromanaging university budgets according to the
             winds of controversy robs boards and administrations of the
             authority they need to resist politicizing the institution.
             This problem has become so threatening that the Association of
             Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges has called on
             its members to ward off such pressures if they are to govern
             "in the public trust." Further, that challenge to shield their
             campuses comes at a time when boards must concentrate on how
             to deal with devastating shortfalls in funds. Current
             ...