Political Repression and the Universities from McCarthyism to Trump

Noted American historian Ellen Schrecker speaks on political repression and the universities from McCarthyism to Trump.

Ellen Schrecker is an American historian known for her research on McCarthyism, political repression, and American higher education. Her latest book, edited with Valerie C. Johnson and Jennifer Ruth, is The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing War on Academic Freedom (2024). Among her most important works are The Lost Promise: American Universities in the 1960s (2021); Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (1998); and No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities (1986). She has also published several other books and edited collections as well as dozens of articles in both scholarly and general interest publications. A retired Professor of History at Yeshiva University, she also serves on the Steering Committee of Historians for Peace and Democracy and is active in the American Association of University Professors, having edited its magazine, Academe, for several years and now belongs to its Committee A on Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance.