William “Bill” Schell Jr.

William Schell Jr.
Image source: 1971 Buccaneer, p. 453

In the spring of 1971, upheaval prevailed at ECU with reportedly hundreds even thousands of students protesting the school’s restrictive dorm visitation policy. Amid the controversy, William “Bill” Schell Jr., a native of Arlington, Virginia, authored a 300-word letter of protest published in the Fountainhead (later, the East Carolinian). Schell’s letter became one of the most legally consequential pieces ever written by an ECU undergraduate. Not only was Schell suspended from the university, along with the paper’s editor, Robert “Bob” Thonen (1946-2018), the letter prompted another controversy, over the limits of free speech, ultimately decided not by university administrators but by successive federal court rulings siding with Schell and Thonen and their rights as students and citizens to free expression. These rulings today stand as landmark decisions affirming freedom of speech for all students at institutions of higher education.

Following the controversy over his letter, Schell eventually earned a B.A. (1982), M.A. (1985), and Ph.D. (1992) in history at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. In 1991, Schell taught for nearly thirty years at Murray State University in Kentucky and is now professor emeritus. His contributions, as a campus activist, free speech proponent, and a university professor well establish him as one of ECU’s most noteworthy students.

In part, Schell’s letter was written to protest the arrests, on March 30, of nearly three dozen students, some of whom had gathered at the Fifth Street residence of President Leo W. Jenkins, to call for changes in ECU dorm visitation policy. However, as Schell later explained,

I didn’t attend the demonstration because it focused on visitation and neglected the war which I thought more important. One of largest U. S. incursions (so-called) into Laos had ended badly weeks before, followed by the largest bombing of Cambodia to that point and, just days before the demonstration, William Calley (1943- ) was sentenced for his part in the My Lai massacre (to which I referred in my letter). Thinking the demonstration would be a glorified panty raid, I spent that day in the library studying for exams. I didn’t find out what happened until I went to pull my shift on WECU campus radio. It was there I wrote my letter. I was just finishing when someone burst in saying the administration had barred the arrested students from taking exams. Whether this was true or not, I don’t know but it was that perceived injustice that prompted my infamous salutation, an impulse that was rather at odds with the rational tone of the rest of the letter.

The “infamous saluation” Schell refers to was “Fuck you, Leo.” “Leo” referred to the ECU president, Dr. Leo W. Jenkins, as many did at that time, by his distinctive first name, Leo.

Schell’s letter, then, was not occasioned simply because of the visitation protest – a movement that he, by his own account, was not an active participant in, but rather by his opposition to the Vietnam War combined with what he saw as campus attempts to “institutionalize morality,” i.e., to decide for people – from on high – matters of right and wrong, and indoctrinate them accordingly in “legislated morality.” Such a legislated morality would ultimately lead, Schell feared, to tragedic consequences such as the My Lai massacre of innocent Vietnamese women and children by the misled likes of Lt. William Calley who claimed to be simply following orders. Schell also objected to academic injustices heaped on the arrested students. It was the latter, according to Schell, that prompted the vulgar complimentary close to his letter.

A court order eventually allowed Schell to be reinstated as a student at ECU. He later related, however, that he “soon dropped out, sick with mono. I recuperated for some months then reenrolled in ECU for a summer session where I met Janet (ECU ’72).” What followed was marriage, life in Roanoke Rapids, a brief stint in radio, then a paper mill, followed by peanut inspection, managing a country store, opening a record store, driving a cab, and finally enlisting in the Army and being stationed in Europe. Subsequently, the GI Bill enabled Schell to enroll at UNC-Chapel Hill. There he worked in the National Guard Public Affairs Detachment and as a ground’s keeper for the Chapel Hill Tennis Club. He also finished his bachelor’s degree in history and went on to earn a Ph.D. in the same.

Schell’s journey was circuitous and challenging, but apparently grounded in a strong sense of personal right and wrong that guided him along the way. His letter may have expressed an inappropriate, perhaps immature disrespect for the president of East Carolina University, Dr. Leo Jenkins, and was, at the very least, of questionable taste, but as a sincere, heartfelt reaction to greater wrongs, it served as an effective means of eliciting from other students a willingness to make a stand for their own beliefs. It also occasioned, most significantly, court rulings affirming students’ rights to free speech.

At Murray State University, Schell combined his interests in radio and politics with a political commentary segment on WKMS, the local public radio station. In addition to a long list of research publications on Latin American and World history, Schell, as a scholar, led the formation of the faculty union at Murray State University. As an ECU student and then later a professor of history, Schell’s contributions to principled discourse make him an outstanding exemplar of the kind of student East Carolina has had a hand in educating.

Sources

More from Digital Collections

1970 Buccaneer, page 195
1970 Buccaneer, page 195

Citation Information

Title: William “Bill” Schell, Jr.

Author: John A. Tucker, PhD

Date of Publication: 7/1/2019

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