Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections

In the late 1940s and the early 1950s, academic freedom across the country came increasingly under threat as McCarthyism and anticommunism took hold during what would be known as the second Red Scare. As the government increasingly sought to root out Communist subversives in American society during this early Cold War period, faculty and staff at institutions of higher learning across the country experienced increased scrutiny from college administrators and trustees, as well as Congress and the FBI, for their speech, their academic work, and their political activities. As a result, many professors and researchers found their scholarship and politics restricted.¹

Brandeis students protested against the spreading and virulent McCarthyism, writing strong condemnations and petitions, and participating in conferences addressing restrictions on academic freedom. They wrote and published interviews with and speeches of prominent individuals –  such as Eleanor Roosevelt, University President Abram L. Sachar, and Justice William O. Douglas – criticizing the growing repression of the freedom of speech and opinion in the U.S.

Article from The Justice entitled "An Ivy Curtain of Fear" that expresses concern over growing attacks against academic freedom in universities and colleges (May 21, 1951). pg. 90

The Justice, the only Brandeis student newspaper at the time, published multiple articles and student-written editorials, especially in the first half of the 1950s, criticizing and condemning the government’s and other universities’ efforts to limit free speech and political opinion and action. For example, in an article entitled “An Ivy Curtain Of Fear,” published in May 14, 1951, a student writer expressed concern over the increasing repression of academic freedom in the United States through the state and federal governments’ growing efforts to curb free speech on college and university campuses. In particular, the article criticized the institution of loyalty checks (which aimed to remove communist subversives at many colleges and universities). It also criticized the submission of an act to the Massachusetts state legislature that would withhold state funds from any university until it reported the actions it had taken to investigate the presence of subversives among the faculty and staff, as well as the termination of the subversives they found.

An article from The Justice entitled "The 'Maroon': A Post-Mortem" that criticizes the University of Chicago's repressive actions against Alan Kimmel, the editor of the university's student paper, The Maroon (November 21, 1951). pg. 130-131

That same year, The Justice published an article entitled “The ‘Maroon’: A Post-Mortem” criticizing the University of Chicago’s repressive actions towards its student newspaper, The Maroon, and its editor, Alan Kimmel, in October of that year. The university administration had ousted Kimmel from his position and threatened to suspend the newspaper because Kimmel had recently attended a Communist Youth Festival in East Berlin and publicly used the title of his office.

An article from The Justice entitled "Group Takes Action to Fight McCarty [sic]" that discusses the creation of a petition by a group of students to President Eisenhower, calling on him to repudiate Senator Joseph McCarthy (May 3, 1954). pg. 359

Students in Professor Fuchs’s Social Science 2 class created a petition addressed to President Eisenhower, asking him to publicly repudiate Senator McCarthy, and circulated the petition among the student body. The text of the petition stated:

“We believe in a strong United States of America; we also believe that the activities of Senator Joseph R. McMarthy [sic] over a long period of time have considerably hurt the cause of freedom and justice for which the United States should stand. He has disregarded truth, persecuted individuals, and squandered [sic] cherished American Institutions without effectively coping with the threat of Soviet Russia. We further believe that the danger be fully understood until you, as president of the United States, publicly identify them with the Senator himself.”

An article from The Justice entitled "S.D.A. Gains Recognition" that explains the nature of the Students for Democratic Action (SDA) and the organization's goals (November 29, 1950). pg. 55

In 1950, a group of students created a chapter of the Students for Democratic Action (SDA), the university’s first political organization. Created to serve an educational purpose in particular, it was “dedicated to the achievement of freedom and economic security for all people everywhere, through education and political action” (The Justice, November 29, 1950). To fulfill this purpose, the chapter held meetings where students could learn about issues affecting freedom in the U.S. For example, the organization sponsored a meeting on March 4, 1952, during which Leonard W. Levy and Richard S. Axt, instructors in American civilization, familiarized students with the legal and constitutional aspects of the Massachusetts state government’s prosecution of Professor Dirk Struik, a math professor at M.I.T., for his alleged violation of the state’s anti-anarchist law. From September 3-7, 1952, the Brandeis chapter of the SDA hosted the Fifth Annual Convention of Students for Democratic Action on Brandeis’s campus. At this conference, delegates from colleges and universities across the country attended and participated in panels on civil liberties, domestic affairs, foreign policy, and political action. The convention declared itself to be in support of academic freedom and voted in favor of a resolution opposing the Massachusetts Anti-Anarchist Statute of 1919 that the state was using to prosecute not only Professor Dirk Struik, but also Harry N. Winner, an advertising executive and former executive secretary of the Samuel Adams School. Thus, the Brandeis chapter of the SDA worked to resist the erosion of freedom of speech and thought, especially in higher education.

As McCarthyism declined following Joseph McCarthys’s censure in the Senate in 1954, the prevalence of Brandeis student actions aimed at the preservation of academic freedom also declined. But these wide-ranging efforts to combat threats to academic freedom represented one of the first notable activist movements taken up by the Brandeis student body and showed that from the beginning, Brandeis students took to heart the university’s motto: “Truth unto its innermost parts”.