Academic freedom imperiled : the McCarthy era at the University of Nevada / J. Dee Kille.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kille, J. Dee (Jimee Dee), 1949-

Series:

Wilbur S. Shepperson series in Nevada history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

University of Nevada--History--20th century.

University of Nevada.

Academic freedom--Nevada--Reno--History--20th century.

Academic freedom.

Stout, Minard W.

History.

Nevada--Reno.

Physical Description:

139 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Reno : University of Nevada Press, [2004]

Summary:

The "Red scare" of the 1950s created a national crisis that challenged concepts of loyalty and freedom of speech in every corner of American society. The crisis was especially problematic in American universities, where traditions of academic freedom were at odds with political issues growing out of the Cold War. The University of Nevada in Reno was no exception.

The University before and during World War II was a small school offering basic programs to a largely Nevada-based student body in the nation's least-populated state. The campus was quiet and generally conservative. The postwar years brought booming enrollments, new faculty members with liberal views, and growing disputes over the practice and purpose of higher education. The 1952 appointment of Minard W. Stout as president triggered the crisis. Mandated by a conservative Board of Regents to "clean up" the University, Stout brought to his new job a keen sense of mission and a strident commitment to an authoritarian chain of command. His subsequent battles with faculty and students quickly degenerated into angry accusations of faculty Communist sympathies and bitter confrontations over academic free speech, university governance, and loyalty. Soon, the university found itself embroiled in an intense controversy that threatened its academic integrity and even raised concerns about its future as a viable institution. Before Stout's resignation in 1957, the storm had brought the university national notoriety and made the administration of higher education a major political issue within Nevada, ultimately involving the state legislature and the courts in an effort to resolve the conflict. J. Dee Kille's lively account of the crisis "on the hill" records a critical period in Nevada's recent history and serves as a powerful case study of the devastating impact of McCarthyism and its atmosphere of suspicion and repression on one American-university campus during this turbulent era in the nation's history.

Contents:

Introduction

Dictators and "reducators"

Who is the boss, anyway?

Let the investigations begin

Out with Stout

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [107]-128) and index.

ISBN:

0874175933

OCLC:

54206806