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The Alexander Meiklejohn Award

In the summer of 1978, Mr. James W. Mason traveled from Laurinburg, North Carolina, to New Haven, Connecticut, to attend the annual meeting of the American Association of University Professors (“AAUP”). Mr. Mason was a somewhat unlikely attendee: the country lawyer1 and former N.C. state senator2 was accepting the organization’s most prestigious honor, the Alexander Meiklejohn Award, on behalf of his alma mater after a series of events that turned on a greenhouse, a Baptist preacher, and the publisher of Hustler. As he took the microphone, he said, “I think that on no future day will I be more proud to be an alumnus and trustee of Wake Forest University,” but he also admitted that when it came to welcoming Larry Flynt to campus, “the Trustees would have preferred a more distinguished person to do battle over.”3

A year earlier, the Men’s Residence Council (“MRC”) at Wake Forest started with a joke and ended up scheduling back-to-back speakers on the topic of pornography: a virtual guarantee of controversy. The student chair wrote to Flynt, who surprised everyone by accepting the invitation.4 The MRC invited the Rev. Coy Privette, president of the North Carolina Baptist State Convention (“Convention”), to speak on the following night. Perhaps aware the initial joke was getting out of hand, the MRC designated Mr. Privette as its “Alumnus of the Year.”

In anticipation of Flynt’s visit, President Scales was besieged by letters from alumni and others, including significant criticism from the Convention, which at the time appointed the trustees of the University and was a source of funding.5 

Though the Board of Trustees comprised no fans of Flynt and questioned the appropriateness of an award, they supported the students and the ideal of an “open platform” at Wake Forest:

“We were helped considerably by President Scales, who reminded us that Wake Forest and the State of North Carolina have been hospitable for years to speakers of all sorts and that every so often a group of students will push to the limit the University’s devotion to the First Amendment. Mr. Flynt’s appearance was an embarrassment, but it would have been a greater and longer lasting embarrassment to restrict such appearances.”6 

The visits were, by all accounts, smooth and even anticlimactic. Flynt spoke to a crowded room, including law students who had him sign constitutional law casebooks, and women who turned their backs as he talked.7 He discussed his recent conviction by an Ohio court on obscenity and organized crime charges, offered arguments for free expression, and thanked the MRC for his “first award for anything.”8 The following night, Privette spoke about the philosophy espoused by pornographic magazines, opined on the balancing of freedom of speech and community life, and “commended the MRC for allowing both sides of the story, Flynt’s and his own, to be offered to students.”9 For its part, the Old Gold & Black tried to emphasize campus lectures during the same week by Catholic philosopher Michael Novak, radio host John Henry Faulk, and Roots author Alex Haley, who would win the Pulitzer Prize a few months later,10 and offered nuanced editorial pieces about freedom of expression.11

The Meiklejohn Award citation also noted a slightly earlier controversy that provides additional context for the conflict with the University’s Baptist founders. During the summer before the MRC set up the back-to-back lectures on pornography, the National Science Foundation awarded Wake Forest a grant of nearly $300,000, which included $85,000 for the construction of a greenhouse.12 The Convention objected to the use of federal dollars to construct a building, believing it to be a violation of the Convention’s own principle of church-state separation.13 The Trustees disagreed, asserting the values of academic freedom and staking their claim as the final authority on University business. That stand led to a revamped relationship between the Convention and the University negotiated over the next few years.14

President Scales later cited the award as “his most valued memory”:

“The hospitality Wake Forest shows to new ideas doesn’t mean we’re not tough-minded and don’t have convictions,” Scales told the Old Gold & Black. “I have worked hard to preserve freedom for views I may despise.”15

Matthew T. Phillips | 11 June 2025

  1. The Fifteenth Alexander Meiklejohn Award, 64 AAUP Bulletin 173, 176 (1978) in which the term is claimed by Mr. Mason for himself. ↩︎
  2. Sarah S. Mansell, James Mason, Trustee Who Helped Establish WFU’s Autonomy, Dies at 86, Wake Forest News (Dec. 2, 2002), https://news.wfu.edu/2002/12/02/james-mason-trustee-who-helped-establish-wfus-autonomy-dies-at-86/. ↩︎
  3. The Fifteenth Alexander Meiklejohn Award, supra note 1 at 175. ↩︎
  4. Maria Henson et al., Object Curiosity, 63 Wake Forest Magazine, Jan. 2016, at 24. ↩︎
  5. The Fifteenth Alexander Meiklejohn Award, supra note 1 at 174. ↩︎
  6. Id. at 175. ↩︎
  7. Henson et al., supra note 4 at 47. ↩︎
  8. Steve Futrell, Publisher Defends Freedom of Press, Old Gold & Black, Mar. 4, 1977, at 1. ↩︎
  9. Kay Killian, Privette Lectures on Pornography, Old Gold & Black, Mar. 4, 1977, at 1. ↩︎
  10. Jim Saintsing, Novak Analyzes American Religion, Old Gold & Black, Mar. 4, 1977, at 2; Stan Carmical, Flynt, Faulk Support First Amendment, Old Gold & Black, Mar. 4, 1977, at 5; Steve Carpenter, Haley Wraps up Challenge, Old Gold & Black, Mar. 4, 1977, at 1. ↩︎
  11. Editorial: Freedom of Thought, Old Gold & Black, Mar. 4, 1977, at 4; Dave Nash, Letter: Flynt Forces First Amendment Re-Examination, Old Gold & Black, Mar. 4, 1977, at 4. ↩︎
  12. Synopsis: The Alexander Meiklejohn Award, Wake Forest Magazine (Sep. 30, 2019), https://magazine.wfu.edu/2019/09/30/synopsis-the-alexander-meiklejohn-award/. ↩︎
  13. The Fifteenth Alexander Meiklejohn Award, supra note 1 at 175. ↩︎
  14. Henson et al., supra note 4 at 45. ↩︎
  15. Id. at 46. ↩︎