Ellen Shrecker, Is Today's Anti-intellectualism Worse than McCarthyism?

Update: 2022-03-01

Description

In this episode, Anne Marie talks to Yeshiva University professor emerita Ellen Schrecker about the history leading up to today's anti-intellectualism.

Ellen has been involved with the politics of higher education and academic freedom for decades. According to Ellen, the current right-wing campaign against teaching critical race theory and other so-called “divisive concepts” is by far the most serious threat to academic freedom (as well as K-12 education) the United States has ever experienced.

Schrecker’s research and experience enable her to speak about the impact of these issues, as well as explain why today’s anti-intellectualism is more dangerous than that of the McCarthy era. She believes that if the repressive measures now coursing through state legislatures and other political bodies are to be repulsed, the academic community and engaged citizens must offer a stronger response than they have until now.

Resources

Wikipedia: Ellen Schrecker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Schrecker

Books by Ellen Schrecker:
No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities
Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America
The Lost Soul of Higher Education: Corporatization
Assault on Academic Freedom
End of the American University
The Lost Promise: American Universities in the 1960s

PEN America: https://pen.org
Historians for Peace and Democracy: https://www.historiansforpeace.org
AAUP: American Association of University Professors: https://www.aaup.org
AAPF: The African American Policy Forum: https://www.aapf.org

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