With War Imminent, Columbia University to Investigate “Loyalty” of Faculty
With U.S. entry into World War I increasingly likely, Columbia University on this day announced that it would begin to investigate the “loyalty” of its faculty.
With a Declaration of War that would take the United States into the war in Europe just a month away (April 6, 1917), a wave of patriotic fever swept over the country, resulting in massive abuses of civil liberties. Colleges and universities were not exempt, and Columbia University had one of the worst records (although it may be because we simply know more by virtue of its being in New York City).
During World War I, any criticism of the war was regarded as disloyalty. As a result of their investigation, the university fired two prominent faculty members, on October 1, 1917. The famed historian Charles A. Beard resigned in protest of the firings on October 9, 1917.
One of the major outcomes of the wartime repression of free speech and other civil liberties was the founding of the ACLU on January 19, 1920.
Learn more: Carol Gruber, Mars and Minerva: World War I and the Uses of the Higher Learning in America (1975)
Read about the wartime hysteria and its legacy: Christopher M. Finan, From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America (2007)
Learn about the suppression of civil liberties and the founding of the ACLU: Samuel Walker, In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU (1990)