Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, was a British mathematician, philosopher, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic philosophy.
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.
Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known in English as George Santayana, was a Spanish-American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Born in Spain, Santayana was raised and educated in the US from the age of eight and identified himself as an American, although he always retained a valid Spanish passport. At the age of 48, Santayana left his position at Harvard and returned to Europe permanently.
Academic freedom is the right of a teacher to instruct and the right of a student to learn in an academic setting unhampered by outside interference. It may also include the right of academics to engage in social and political criticism.
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is an organization of professors and other academics in the United States. AAUP membership includes over 500 local campus chapters and 39 state organizations.
Sidney Hook was an American philosopher of pragmatism known for his contributions to the philosophy of history, the philosophy of education, political theory, and ethics. After embracing communism in his youth, Hook was later known for his criticisms of totalitarianism, both fascism and Marxism–Leninism. A social democrat, Hook sometimes cooperated with conservatives, particularly in opposing Marxism–Leninism. After World War II, he argued that members of such groups as the Communist Party USA and Leninists like democratic centralists could ethically be barred from holding the offices of public trust because they called for the violent overthrow of democratic governments.
Cultural pluralism is a term used when smaller groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities, whereby their values and practices are accepted by the dominant culture, provided such are consistent with the laws and values of the wider society. As a sociological term, the definition and description of cultural pluralism has evolved. It has been described as not only a fact but a societal goal.
John E. McGeehan (1880–1968) was a lawyer, district attorney, and judge in New York City from 1917 to 1950.
Tenure is a category of academic appointment existing in some countries. A tenured post is an indefinite academic appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances, such as financial exigency or program discontinuation. Tenure is a means of defending the principle of academic freedom, which holds that it is beneficial for society in the long run if scholars are free to hold and examine a variety of views.
Cassius Jackson Keyser was an American mathematician of pronounced philosophical inclinations.
Albert Coombs Barnes was an American chemist, businessman, art collector, writer, and educator, and the founder of the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Ellen Wolf Schrecker is an American professor emerita of American history at Yeshiva University. She has received the Frederick Ewen Academic Freedom Fellowship at the Tamiment Library at NYU. She is known primarily for her work in the history of McCarthyism. Historian Ronald Radosh has described her as "the dean of the anti-anti-Communist historians."
The City College of the City University of New York is a public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, City College was the first free public institution of higher education in the United States. It is the oldest of CUNY's 25 institutions of higher learning and is considered its flagship institution.
Thomas Munro was an American philosopher of art and professor of art history at Western Reserve University. He served as Curator of Education for the Cleveland Museum of Art for 36 years (1931–67).
Aspects of philosopher, mathematician and social activist Bertrand Russell's views on society changed over nearly 80 years of prolific writing, beginning with his early work in 1896, until his death in February 1970.
Marriage and Morals is a 1929 book by philosopher Bertrand Russell, in which the author questions the Victorian notions of morality regarding sex and marriage.
Horace Meyer Kallen was a German-born American philosopher who supported pluralism and Zionism.
The 1911 modernism controversy at Brigham Young University was an episode involving four professors at Brigham Young University (BYU), who between 1908 and 1911 widely taught evolution and higher criticism of the Bible, arguing that modern scientific thought was compatible with Christian and Mormon theology. The professors were popular among students and the community but their teachings concerned administrators, and drew complaints from stake presidents, eventually resulting in the resignation of all four faculty members, an event that "leveled a serious blow to the academic reputation of Brigham Young University—one from which the Mormon school did not fully recover until successive presidential administrations."
The political views of American academics began to receive attention in the 1930s, and investigation into faculty political views expanded rapidly after the rise of McCarthyism. Demographic surveys of faculty that began in the 1950s and continue to the present have found higher percentages of liberals than of conservatives, particularly among those who work in the humanities and social sciences. Researchers and pundits disagree about survey methodology and about the interpretations of the findings.
Heresy, Yes—Conspiracy, No was a 283-page anti-communist book by New York University philosophy professor Sidney Hook, which John Day Company, published in May 1953, about conflicts between support for Communism and for academic freedom in America. The book became "perhaps the most influential justification for firing Communists and suspected Communists from university and schools in the early 1950s" during McCarthyism.
