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THE "RED SCARE" IN EDUCATION

Hunting Communists

The "Red Scare" of the 1950s touched every aspect of people's lives, including education. The loyalty of educators, at all levels, came under scrutiny as people expressed their fears that subversive forces were seeking control of schools. In February 1950 the U.S. commissioner of education, Dr. Earl James McGrath, warned against Communists teaching in public school, and the National Education Association barred membership of Communists at its annual meeting in July 1950. School districts required loyalty oaths from their teachers and employees. Universities cleansed their staffs and faculties of suspected subversive personnel. Such purges came at a price. The New York City school districts found so may suspected subversives that they suffered teacher shortages due to dismissals.

New York Eight

In May 1950 eight teachers in New York City suspected of being Communists were suspended without pay, pending a board subcommittee trial. By mid December the eight were recommended for dismissal, although no specific proof could be found during a seven-month investigation that any of them had Communist ties or sympathies. The subcommittee used as its strongest argument against the teachers a 30 November decision by the New York Court of Appeals, which up-held the controversial Feinberg law barring Communists or suspected Communists from teaching school. (The Supreme Court upheld the Feinberg law on 3 March 1952. The majority opinion held that "school authorities have the right and duty to screen" those who "shape the attitude of young minds toward the society in which they live.…") In February 1951 the eight suspected teachers were fired, and three more quit over the controversy. A year later eight more teachers and administrators were suspended for alleged Communist connections. In 1957 the New York State education commissioner reversed the suspension and rehired five of the teachers.

The Rest of the Nation

Other states felt the effect of these fears. In both Ohio and New Jersey the state Supreme Courts upheld the validity of requiring public school teachers to take a loyalty oath, and in 1951 Oklahoma's governor, Johnston Murray, signed a bill that required a statement of loyalty from teachers and government employees. In Philadelphia public schools suspended twenty-six teachers in 1953 after they pleaded the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer questions about Communist ties.

Burning Books

Educational materials used in the classrooms also came under scrutiny. In December 1951 the New York State Board of Regents commissioned three men to check on subversive material in public-school textbooks. Similar actions took place around the country and led to the censorship of reading materials in the schools and in the community libraries. In February 1952 Charles Hartman, vice president of the board of education in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, reported the burning of "5 or 6" books which dealt with "socialism and sex."

Higher Education

Educators and administrators at the university level also fell victim to the "Red Scare" in record numbers. Many were forced to sign loyalty oaths or answer interrogation-style questions. That posed a difficult problem for professors who objected to both the infringements of their academic freedom and their constitutional rights. Sen. Joseph McCarthy made it his personal goal to clean house of the "Communist thinkers" and subversive influences in colleges. Being a member of the Communist party constituted sure grounds for dismissal from schools, but at the college level even having communist or socialist ideas could get one fired.

Loyalty Oath in California

On 25 March 1949 the Board of Regents of the University of California pro-posed to require that faculty members sign a loyalty oath. Controversy ensued, and faculty members mourned the fate of their academic freedom. By the end of the year the opposing sides were stalemated. Then in February 1950 the University of California singled out and ordered 13.5 percent of its 11,000 faculty members to sign a loyalty oath or to resign. After more heated controversy the university dropped the mandatory oath in April and insisted instead that the faculty in question sign a constitutional loyalty oath, which the state of California already required state employees to sign. Over the late spring and summer, 15 percent of the faculty and staff members received their dismissals by the university after still refusing to sign. Because of the faculty shortages, forty-eight classes were then dropped from the fall semester in September. The winter semester opened with 15 new faculty members, hired to fill positions held by the 188 fired, who themselves refused to sign the state loyalty oath. By April 1951 the state court of appeals ruled the university's action unconstitutional and ordered it to reinstate 18 faculty members previously dismissed. In October 1952, the California Supreme Court, which declared the university oath unconstitutional but upheld the validity of the state oath, upheld the appeals court's ruling. Subsequently the 18 faculty members were reinstated.

AAUP Report

The loyalty oath issue came before the U.S. Supreme Court in late 1952. The court ruled that states could not deny employment to people "solely on the basis of organizational membership, regardless of their knowledge concerning the organization to which they had belonged." That essentially reinstated hundreds of university-level personnel across the country. Nonetheless, in March 1953 the American Association of University Professors released a report declaring that membership in the Communist party was sufficient to fire a faculty member because of the Communist code of conduct. However, the AAUP also denounced loyalty oaths, banning books, and the congressional investigations in its report.

Federal Intrusion

By 1954 the "Red Scare" had abated, but debates over the right of government to question the organizational ties of its citizens continued. Many felt local school boards should police their own teachers and that the federal government should stay out of local affairs. The fear of communism was soon replaced, for whites at least, by a more easily identifiable fear—of blacks in the schools—raising the argument about federal intrusion into local schools to a higher pitch.