A Salute To Clark Kerr

[WillyT]

First Chancellor
University of California, Berkeley
Twelfth President
University of California

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U.C. Berkeley

During the McCarthy era in 1949, the Regents of the University of California adopted an anti-communist loyalty oath to be signed by all University of California employees. Kerr signed the oath, but fought against the firing of those who refused to sign. Kerr gained respect from his stance and was named UC Berkeley's first chancellor when that position was created in 1952. As chancellor, Kerr oversaw the construction of 12 high-rise dormitories. In September, 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed him to the Commission on Intergovernmental Relations.

Student protests

Controversy exploded in 1964 when Berkeley students led the Free Speech Movement in protest of regulations limiting political activities on campus, including Civil Rights advocacy and protests against the Vietnam war. It culminated in hundreds of arrested students at a sit-in. Kerr’s initial decision was to not expel University of California students that participated in sit-ins off campus. That decision evolved into reluctance to expel students who later would protest on campus in a series of escalating events on the Berkeley campus in late 1964. Kerr was criticized both by students for not agreeing to their demands and by conservative UC Regent Edwin Pauley and others for responding too leniently to the student unrest.[1]

Blacklisting

In 2002, the FBI released documents that had Kerr blacklisted[clarification needed] as part of a campaign to suppress people at UC deemed subversive.[2] This information had been classified by the FBI and was only released after a fifteen-year legal battle that went all the way to the US Supreme Court. President Lyndon Johnson had picked Kerr to become secretary of Health, Education and Welfare but withdrew the nomination after the FBI background check on Kerr included damaging information the agency knew to be false.

Edwin Pauley approached the CIA Director John McCone (a Berkeley alum and associate) for assistance. McCone in turn met with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.[3][4] Hoover agreed to supply Pauley with confidential FBI information on "ultra-liberal" regents, faculty members, and students, and to assist in removing Kerr. Pauley received dozens of briefings from the FBI to this end. The FBI assisted Pauley and Ronald Reagan in painting Kerr as a dangerous "liberal."

Kerr's perceived leniency was key in Reagan's election as Governor of California in 1966[citation needed] and in Kerr's dismissal as president by the university’s Board of Regents in 1967. In response, Kerr stated that he left the university just as he entered it: "fired with enthusiasm."

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Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Kerr