Biographical Note
Lyman R. Bradley, A.B., M.A. Harvard, Ph.D. New York University, joined Washington Square College as lecturer in German in 1924 and became Department Chairman in 1942. Over the years he became associated with organizations described as "radical," among them the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, which claimed to assist refugees from the Spanish Civil War. In 1943, the organization was listed as subversive by the United States Attorney General and in 1947 was ordered to deliver its records to the Un-American Activities Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives (HUAC). Its leaders, including Bradley as Treasurer, refused and were convicted of contempt of Congress.
With the approval of the Chancellor, Dean Thomas C. Pollock relieved Bradley of his chairmanship of the German Department, assuming that position himself. Bradley was then a tenured associate professor. He was sentenced to jail, but filed an appeal and continued to teach classes. When the appeal was lost in 1948 and Bradley was sent to serve his sentence, the Dean suspended all of Bradley's academic duties. That action was approved by the Chancellor and University Council (Board of Trustees). Bradley was offered an opportunity to state his case to the University community, following which his continuence with the University was to be determined.
Bradley asked for a hearing in 1951, a year after his release from jail in 1950. Twelve professorial members of the University Senate were appointed as an advisory committee to conduct proceedings in collaboration with University counsel. The committee, with Dean Pollock as chief witness, considered Bradley's conviction and his activities on campus while awaiting appeal. Among Bradley's activities were a noisy disturbance in the office of the Dean and misstatements in letters to campus newspapers while his case was considered. The senate members rendered a nearly unanimous decision that he was unfit to teach.
Bradley then asked to appear before the University Council and a similar hearing was held later in 1951. A resolution was adopted by 20 members, with one dissenting, that he be removed from the faculty and dismissed from all academic duties. The resolution was accompanied by a decision to withhold his salary for the period following his 1948 suspension. Bradley appealed the salary decision in the courts in 1952, but lost the case in 1953, and lost an appeal in 1954.
In 1956, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) decided to investigate the case on procedural grounds, along with that of NYU's dismissal of Professor Edwin Berry Bergum, in 1952-1953. The AAUP threatened censure unless the cases were amended and a year's quittance paid to each former faculty member. The University refused, and the AAUP pronounced censure in 1959. The designation was lifted in 1961, upon amendment of the rules of tenure, but without reversal of the salary decision.
The dismissal of Lyman R. Bradley occurred at a time when Russia's expansion into neighboring territory and the division of Europe into spheres of influence led to a fearful awareness of possible Communism in America, and an examination of Marxist philosophy of violent overthrow of adversary governments. Though the procedures of the Un-American Activities Committee of the House of Representatives were openly criticized, a dozen states defined the Communist Party as illegal in 1947 and banned it from the ballot in elections. Anxiety grew with the revelations of the Alger Hiss case in 1948 and the trial of American Communist Party leaders in 1949. Universities came under scrutiny the same year, as state legislatures investigated subversive activity at the Universities of Michigan and Washington. At the latter, three professors were dismissed in 1951 for Communist affiliation.
New York University had reestablished a liberal arts undergraduate college at Washington Square in 1913 for working commuting students and students in the professional schools of commerce (business), pedagogy (education) and law. The collegiate subculture established in other American universities in the nineteenth century, including the University Heights campus, was less evident in the urban campus, with its vocational focus, lack of playing fields and lack of dormitories; older veterans gave a serious and frequently political tone to student clubs and organizations at the Square. Organized student and political protests, however, lacked the national focus that characterized the student movement of 20 years later. It is significant the one of the charges brought against Bradley, that of holding a noisy, impetuous and potentially disorderly demonstration, was originally made by the head of the student government organization, and then adopted by the Dean of the College.
As the post-War supply of veteran students began to decline and state colleges attracted those who could not afford private tuition, the Council faced the problem of endowment for the future. Traditional sources of funding were alumni, most of whom had worked as students, and the business community, which expected NYU graduates to be trained pragmatically. While the administration took pains to define the dismissal of Bradley for his actions and activities only, the financial constituency expected from the University a strong message to the nation and the academic community that NYU was determined to sever from its midst any element that promoted a philosophy unfriendly to the national interest.
The University's administrative framework in 1947 was a federated group of schools, institutes and colleges on several campuses, following individual goals within a structure that allowed centralization of the administrative hierarchy. Authority from three administrative offices controlled the procedures of suspension and academic trial for Bradley. The Office of the Dean of Washington Square College supervised selection of faculty and curricula, and acted as liaison between students and faculty, faculty and administration. The Dean was responsible for the initiation of charges and arranged hearings to determine any change in tenure of a faculty member. Thomas C. Pollock, Phi Beta Kappa and NYU Professor of English since 1938, became Dean in March 1947.
Harry Woodburn Chase had been Professor, Dean, and Chairman of faculty at the University of North Carolina and its president for 11 years. Three years at the University of Illinois preceded his coming to NYU as Chancellor in 1933. His faculty and Dean's experience contributed to the flexibility he showed in sharing leadership and responsibility with Dean Pollock. As chief executive officer of the University, his was the explanatory voice of NYU's position to academic and political inquiries.
Harold O. Voorhis held his first administrative office at NYU in 1920, becoming Vice Chancellor (chief assistant to the Chancellor) in 1925. He maintained this position, with duties expanded by Chancellor Chase, until 1955. As Clerk of the University Council, he drafted and maintained the minutes of that body.
James Madden was Council Treasurer and member since 1946 and Acting Chancellor of the University, 1951-1952. He had a strong legal background and, like most other Council members, was a national business figure.
Royal W. France, Counsel to Lyman R. Bradley
Stuart Updike, Special counsel to the University
John W. Gerdes, Counsel to the University
Fowler W. Harper, Yale Law School Professor, Counsel to Lyman R. Bradley
Arad Riggs, NYU Law School Professor, University Counsel to Dean Pollock
Return to topScope and Content Note
The records of The Academic Freedom Case of Lyman R. Bradley came from the highest levels of University governance: the Offices of the Chancellor, the Vice Chancellor, and Dean of Washington Square College. The records reflect traditional patterns of leadership and responsibility as well as unusual postures of initiative, decisiveness and defensiveness in response to the political climate of the period. These conditions along with the unique circumstances of this case provoked an examination of the privileges of academic freedom and the responsibility of tenure. This collection contains a consecutive record of hearings of faculty and University Council sitting in judgment of one of their own. The role of legal counsel is significant, and the consultation with attorneys outside the University attests to the complexity of the case. The University Council's stated role in the bylaws as the supreme governing body with the power to make appointments and removals is here manifest in its function as final arbiter of the faculty's conclusions.
The collection contains primarily correspondence, committee and hearing reports, legal documents and subject files. Additionally, there is a significant assortment of news clippings, handbills and exhibits documenting the student and political philosophies of the period. The collection contains correspondence, committee and hearing reports, drafts, exhibits, handbills and posters, legal documents, memoranda, minutes, newspapers and news clippings, printed material, publications, subject files, telegrams and transcripts of hearings and trials. Among the handbills, posters, and newspapers are a few belonging to NYU student organizations.
Acquisition and storage of these records by the Office of the Secretary did not disturb their original arrangement, which has been preserved with each of three originating offices designated a series. Folders within each series are topical, arranged chronologically within folders. The arrangement of series represents the chronology of action as it occurred in the University: the Dean as initiator of the action; the Chancellor as officer who presented the charges to the accused professor and to the Council for hearing; and the Vice Chancellor who prepared dockets and minutes for the Council and recorded their deliberations and conclusions.
The removal of duplicates, printed matter and stenotypist tape reduced the collection from 3 linear feet to 1.25 linear feet. The bulk of this material falls between the years 1947 to 1951, with a few documents dating to 1924.
Summaries of case events which span all series are present in Folders 10, 11, 15, 20, 24 and 33, written by both administrators and University Council.
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Arrangement |
||
| Series I is arranged chronologically; series II and III are arranged by subject. | ||
| This collection has been organized into three series: | ||
| I. Office of the Dean of Washington Square College | ||
| II. Office of the Chancellor | ||
| III. Office of the Vice Chancellor | ||
Related Material at the New York University Archives
A listing of Council members over the years may be found in the Bulletins of the University College of Arts and Science. Other related material includes:
University Bylaws, Archives H.
Board of Trustees (Council) Actions RG 2.1
Office of Chancellor Chase, RG 3.0.5
Presidential Administrative Records (Madden, Heald, Newsom), RG 3.0.6
Office of the Vice President (Vice Chancellor) and Secretary Voorhis, RG 4.1.1
Office of the Dean of Washington Square College, RG 19.0
Reminiscences (various), Archives H
See also: The Papers of Charlotte Stern (Board member of the JAFRC). Trial briefs, clippings, photos; Collection 70, Tamiment Library, NYU. Return to topSeparated Material
#36, 37, 38, 38: Court Records and Government Briefs for Bradley, Fleischman, Bryan and Eisler cases
#45 Pollock: Communism and Academic Freedom: Tenure Cases at The University of Washington 1949 (available in Bobst Library Call No. LD 5741.JA55)
#46 Pollock: University of Pennsylvania Law Review (December, 1950) (available in New York University Law Library)
#3 Bradley: Communist Party Cases
#4 Bradley: Barsky et al vs. U.S.
Stenotypist Tape of 1951 Jan. hearing
Tape recording 1948 Student Meeting
Return to topRestrictions
Access Restrictions
Open to researchers.
Use Restrictions
There may be some restrictions on the use of the collection. For more information, contact
New York University Archives
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
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Administrative Information
Provenance
The records of the New York University Academic Freedom Case of Lyman R. Bradley (1947-1961) were transferred on June 12, 1984 to the New York University Archives by the Office of the Secretary. The records, together with those of a later case involving Edwin Berry Burgum, were sealed in 1954 by the Office of the General Counsel and stored in the President's vault in Vanderbilt Hall. Requests for research use in 1981 and 1982 led the Chancellor to appoint a Committee to evaluate provisions for access. The Committee in 1985 recommended that the collections become available to scholars, with reasonable regard for privacy.
Preferred Citation
Published citations should take the following form:
Identification of item, date (if known); Records of the Lyman R. Bradley Academic Academic Freedom Case; collection number;
box number; folder number; New York University Archives
, New York University Libraries.
Processing Information
The records of the Academic freedom case of Lyman R. Bradley, together with those of Edwin Berry Burgum, were delivered to the New York University Archives on June 12, 1984 and opened and separated on February 18, 1986.
The administrative office of latest origin had been the Office of the Secretary which in 1954 placed files relating to the Bradley and Burgum cases in sealed containers in the President's vault in Vanderbilt Hall. The Bradley records were administrative files from the Office of the Dean of Washington Square College, the Office of the Chancellor, and the Office of the Vice Chancellor (the office that contributed minutes and exhibits from those Council meetings (1947-1961) at which "the Bradley matter" was discussed). This collection measured 3 linear feet, consisted of 46 file folders, and included up to six copies each of various hearing books and committee reports. Processing has reduced the records to 1 1/3 linear feet, which are stored in 34 folders in 3 acid-free boxes.
The 18 folders from the Office of the Dean bore single color labels and designated individuals and organizations significant to the case: various University counsel, apologists for Bradley, the Modern Language Association, and the American Association of University Professors. Their arrangement begins with hearing reports which defined original charges, followed by the file folders maintained in the alphabetical order as received.
Of the seven folders received from the Office of the Chancellor, one had intermingled correspondence from the Vice Chancellor and has been placed at the end of the series to interface with two Vice Chancellor's folders that have Chancellor's material intermingled with them. The labelled function of these files - to provide background information to outside counsel - can be a significant focus for study of the role of outside counsel in University decision-making.
While the folders used at the University were neat and basically chronological, those used as background for lawyers were in considerable disarrangement. They have been restored to chronological order.
The Chancellor's material begins with Bradley-General and has been arranged to follow the development of the case: publicity, protests, and material sent to counsel.
The Vice Chancellor's folders begin with correspondence and end with Council files. From a large collection of duplication, there remain council dockets, minutes and exhibits, reflecting most of the 13 occasions of Bradley case discussion.
Significant to this series is that the Council exhibits are the original, signed documents from the Dean's and Chancellor's files. These were the letters and memoranda which communicated the important events of the caseâ?? particularly to (and from) Professor Bradley: his suspension, opportunity for hearing, etc. Since these documents are referred to throughout the collection, restoring these (or photocopies) to their series of origin would restore provenance and enhance understanding of the case.
There is evidence of considerable "correction" to minutes and hearing reports and it can be anticipated that request for study of the stenotypist tape will be made. The Chancellor's secretary, ------------, played a significant role in this case and her notations and directions on the Chancellor's papers are considerable. She was an unannounced third-party listener to telephone calls to Bradley counsel and the recorder of the many "blind" copies of the documents circulated.
Overall, the Bradley material was received in excellent condition. Some court records in folders 3 and 4 used as Exhibits are missing, as are copies of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. A few pieces of correspondence have been marked for mending with special tape and several newspapers and news clippings remain to be xeroxed (those from the University community to be added to Archives files, if appropriate.)
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