 Student leaders took the role as the plaintiffs in the lawsuit while Sitterson, UNC System President William C. Friday (somewhat ironically as Sitterson and Friday were firm opponents of the Speaker Ban), the University of North Carolina and the State of North Carolina were the defendants.Sitterson faced other challenges during his tenure including a 1969 strike of campus dining facility employees, which was led by a new African American student organization called the Black Student Movement and a general walkout of students following the murders of four Kent State University students in May 1970.Throughout Sitterson's career as an administrator at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he continued to teach courses in history.