Ellen Schrecker

The McCarthy era was a tragic chapter in American history. Schrecker's book is one of the best I've read on this period. She reminds us that hundreds, maybe thousands, of lives were shattered by unfair or disingenuous accusations. Most affected were academics, union leaders, Hollywood writers, directors, and actors, and government workers. Many of them were chastised for trying to live their political ideals 20 years before, when the economy was in ruins and people were looking for more show more equitable solutions to poverty, not to mention racism and unfair labor practices. Communism, along with socialism and anarchism, was seen for a brief period of time by some as offering alternatives to what was then a very broken system.

There was never any threat to the American way of life, despite what Joe McCarthy and others said. As Schrecker points out, many of the loudest accusers knew this. Their real motive was breaking up union activity, protecting corporate power, and undermining many of the successes of the New Deal. In large part, they succeeded.

Worse still, and beyond all the lives and families it destroyed, McCarthyism had lasting negative effects on politics and culture that still hurt us. It destroyed the left. The damage done to the labor movement has never been recovered. McCarthyism hurt America's international relations by narrowing foreign policy, and thus intensifying the cold war. As Schrecker puts it, "The anticommunist purges wiped out the means through which it was possible to offer an alternative vision of the world." show less

Ellen Schreck has given us a vivid portrait of the dilemma many college professors faced during witch-hunts of the early fifties. She begins with an extensive history of the concept of academic freedom. No consensus has ever been reached on what exactly it is.

Usually it resulted in debate on campus in response to external threats rather than internal dissent. Leading members of the academic community wanted to control behavior which might lead to outside intervention. The 1st AAUP show more formulation of academic freedom in fact discouraged controversy and implored the teacher to teach all sides of an issue. Unfortunately, academic freedom meant nothing to those charged with being fellow travelers or communists. One of the great "catch-22s" of this era was that by definition anyone who denied being, a communist was by definition a communist. Simply pleading the Fifth Amendment became grounds for dismissal at many institutions, as did failure to rat on one's colleagues. Even though many academics were not ultimately charged by HUAC, simply the fact they were asked to testify became grounds enough for dismissal. It became virtually impossible to defend oneself, especially when college faculty, presidents and boards, sought to avoid any hint of controversy and found it was much easier to expel the accused than try to defend him. The vaguest hint that federal funds for research grants might be in jeopardy caused the faculty to quiver with anxiety and to throw ethics to the wind. Academic freedom was used to justify firings in many case~. The reasoning was that one could not be intellectually honest if one had had anything to do with communists. Academic freedom was defined from an institutional standpoint rather than and ideological one. Paranoid professors feared that if the academic community failed to purge itself, witch-hunts would organized from the outside. Tragically, Schreck's account shows how academia's self-enforcement of McCarthyism silenced an entire generation of radical intellectuals and stifled all opposition to the official version of the Cold War. Ironically many who suffered the most were teachers who, after becoming seriously disillusioned with communism, had abandoned the party. Many were also accused of communistic leanings for campus political ends. There are all to few examples of heroic faculty who, because of support from their colleagues and/or administration, were able to keep their jobs despite tremendous pressure.

A sad episode in the history of academic community. show less

An important work on the higher education system and its discontents. Why are our schools operating as corporations, and what does this mean for the future of education? The author examines the history of academic freedom, then moves into the evolution of the school from an institution of higher learning directed in large part by the faculty to a corporation in the business of delivering degrees directed in large part by the administrators who are more interested in concrete measures of show more success, such as numbers of butts in seats, then in more nebulous ones, such as the quality of education delivered. Should be required reading for everyone who has been subjected to the ubiquitous propaganda machine that trumpets the evils of modern higher education; if you have ever bemoaned the "indoctrination" or snarked about the easy life of an academic, or asked why we need humanities education anyway, this book is just what you need. show less

Ellen Schreck in has given us a vivid portrait of the dilemma many college professors faced during witch-hunts of the early fifties. She begins with an extensive history of the concept of academic freedom. No consensus has ever been reached on what exactly it is. Usually it resulted in debate on campus in response to external threats rather than internal dissent. Leading members of the academic community wanted to control behavior which might lead to outside intervention. The 1st AAUP show more formulation of academic freedom in fact discouraged controversy and implored the teacher to teach all sides of an issue. Unfortunately, academic freedom meant nothing to those charged with being fellow travelers or communists. One of the great "catch-22s" of this era was that by definition anyone who denied being a communist was by definition a communist. Simply pleading the fifth amendment became grounds for dismissal at many institutions, as did failure to rat on one's colleagues.

Even though many academics were not ultimately charged by BUAC simply the fact they were asked to testify became .grounds enough for dismissal. It became virtually impossible to defend oneself, especially when college faculty, presidents and boards, sought to avoid any hint of controversy and found it was much easier to expel the accused than try to defend him. The vaguest hint that federal funds for research grants might be in jeopardy caused the faculty to quiver with anxiety and to throw ethics to the wind. Academic freedom was used to justify firings in many case.. The reasoning was that one could not be intellectually honest if one had had anything to do with communists. Academic freedom was defined from an institutional standpoint rather than and ideological one. Paranoid professors feared that if the academic community failed to purge itself, witch-hunts would organized from the outside.

Tragically, Schreck's account shows how academia's self-enforcement of McCarthyism silenced an entire generation of radical intellectuals and stifled all opposition to the official version of the Cold War. Ironically many who suffered the most were teachers who, after becoming seriously disillusioned with communism, had abandoned the party.
Many were also accused of communistic leanings for campus political ends. There are all to few examples of heroic faculty who, because of support from their colleagues and/or administration, were able to keep their jobs despite tremendous pressure. A sad episode in the history of academic community. show less