Ellen Wolf Schrecker (born August 4, 1938) is an American professor emerita of

American history The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Numerous indigenous cultures formed, and many saw transformations in the 16th century away from more densel ...

Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City."About YU
on the Yeshiva Universi ...

. She has received the Frederick Ewen Academic Freedom Fellowship at the

Tamiment Library The Tamiment Library is a research library at New York University that documents radical and left history, with strengths in the histories of communism, socialism, anarchism, the New Left, the Civil Rights Movement, and utopian experiments. The R ...

NYU New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

. She is known primarily for her work in the history of

McCarthyism McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origin ...

. Historian

Ronald Radosh Ronald Radosh ( ; born 1937) is an American writer, professor, historian, and former Marxist. As he described in his memoirs, Radosh was, like his parents, a member of the Communist Party of the United States of America until the Khrushchev Thaw ...

has described her as "the dean of the anti-anti-Communist historians."

Background

Schrecker graduated ''

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'' from

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and h ...

in 1960 and earned her M.A. in 1962 and her doctorate in 1974, both from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

Career

She has taught at Harvard,

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nin ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

, the

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSS ...

, and

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region i ...

. From 1998 to 2002, Schrecker was the editor of ''Academe'', the journal of the

American Association of University Professors 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. The AAUP's stated mission ...

Personal life

Schrecker married

Marvin Gettleman Marvin E. Gettleman (September 12, 1933 – January 7, 2017), was an American professor emeritus of leftist history, best known for the anthology Vietnam and America' (1965). Background Gettleman was born on September 12, 1933, in New York Ci ...

(1933 – 2017), a professor emeritus of history.

Political views

Schrecker has said that she is "a card-carrying member of the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

who undertook the study of McCarthyism precisely because of my opposition to its depredations against freedom of speech," and that "in this country McCarthyism did more damage to the constitution than the American Communist party ever did." Critics have argued that, in making her case, Schrecker has underplayed the undemocratic nature of the

Communist Party USA The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Rev ...

. In a reply to an essay that Schrecker and Maurice Isserman wrote in ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...

'' in 2000, John Earl Haynes quoted the leader of the UDA, the predecessor of the politically progressive

ADA Ada may refer to: Places Africa * Ada Foah, a town in Ghana * Ada (Ghana parliament constituency) * Ada, Osun, a town in Nigeria Asia * Ada, Urmia, a village in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Ada, Karaman, a village in Karaman Province, T ...

, who stated that "an alliance between liberals and Communists ouldbetray liberalism's bedrock democratic values." Characterizing himself as neither "left" nor "right" but anti-"tyranny", Haynes cited as evidence of Schrecker's illiberalism her statement that "cold war liberalism did not, in fact, 'get it right.'" Schrecker has been criticized by Trotskyites for being excessively concerned for the reputations of persons connected with the Stalin-supporting

, noting that the CPUSA supported the US government's prosecution of Trotskyites under the Smith Act and, in general, persecuted socialists who did not support Stalin's regime. Schrecker has written critically of

David Horowitz David Joel Horowitz (born January 10, 1939) is an American conservative writer. He is a founder and president of the right-wing David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC); editor of the Center's website '' FrontPage Magazine''; and director of Disco ...

's "academic bill of rights" manifesto against what he considers a predominant liberal bias in American higher education. She concurred with the

ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". ...

and

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and s ...

, the

Center for Constitutional Rights The Center for Constitutional RightsThe Center for Constitutional Rights
(CCR) is a

, and the American Association of University Professors in condemning the

University of South Florida The University of South Florida (USF) is a public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, and other campuses in St. Petersburg and Sarasota. It is one of 12 members of the State University System of Florida. USF i ...

's 2003 dismissal of a tenured faculty member: the Palestinian-born, professor of computer engineering

Sami Al-Arian Sami Amin Al-Arian ( ar, سامي أمين العريان; born January 14, 1958) is a Kuwaiti-born Islamist and political activist of unverified Palestinian origin who was a computer engineering professor at University of South Florida. Durin ...

, following his federal indictment during the Bush presidency on charges of raising money for terrorism through his support for Palestinian causes. Schrecker wrote:

Just as charges of communist sympathies in the 1950s destroyed the careers of people who studied China, so today the Arab-Israeli conflict plagues scholars who come from or study the Middle East. Predictably, the first major academic-freedom case to arise after September 11 involved a Palestinian nationalist, the already-controversial University of South Florida professor of computer engineering Sami Al-Arian, suspended and then fired after the federal government charged him with supporting terrorism. His summary dismissal, even if the university were to revisit it in light of his recent acquittal, is a classic violation of academic freedom: It involved his off-campus political activities.On March 2, 2006, Al-Arian, who had been kept in solitary confinement for three years while awaiting trial, accepted a plea agreement with prosecutors. He agreed to plead guilty to one count (that of misleading a reporter by shielding some of his acquaintances) out 53 counts of conspiring to help the Palestinian Islamic Jihad association, a charity founded by a former colleague of his, which in 1995 had been declared (in an executive order by President Clinton), a " specially designated terrorist" organization. Al-Arian was sentenced to 57 months in prison and ordered deported following his prison term. Se
Laughlin, "In His Plea Deal, What Did Sami Al-Arian Admit to?", ''Tampa Bay Times'', April 4, 2006.
/ref>

Bibliography

Schrecker's best known book is ''Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America'' (1998), about which''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'' wrote, "It is no easy task bringing new life to an era already as dissected as the McCarthy era, yet this is what Schrecker accomplishes in a magnificent study of how and why McCarthyism happened and how its shadow still darkens our lives." In addition, she has written on

political repression Political repression is the act of a state entity controlling a citizenry by force for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing the citizenry's ability to take part in the political life of a society, thereby ...

academic freedom Academic freedom is a moral and legal concept expressing the conviction that the freedom of inquiry by faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy as well as the principles of academia, and that scholars should have freedom to teach ...

, Soviet espionage during the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

Franco-American relations Franco-American may refer to: *French Americans, American people of French or French Canadian descent * Franco-American (brand), a brand name of the Campbell Soup Company *Franco-American alliance, 1778 alliance between the Kingdom of France and t ...

in the 1920s ( subject of her PhD dissertation), and

Chinese cuisine Chinese cuisine encompasses the numerous cuisines originating from China, as well as overseas cuisines created by the Chinese diaspora. Because of the Chinese diaspora and historical power of the country, Chinese cuisine has influenced many o ...

Books

* * * * * * * * *

Articles, chapters

*with Maurice Isserman, "'Papers of a Dangerous Tendency': From Major Andre's Boot to the Venona Files," in Schrecker, ed., Cold War Triumphalism * *"McCarthyism: Political Repression and the Fear of Communism," Social Research Vol. 71, No 3 (Fall 2004) *"Stealing Secrets: Communism and Soviet Espionage in the 1940s, " North Carolina Law Review vol 82, #5 (June 2004): 101–47. *"Communism and Soviet Espionage in the 1940s," North Carolina Law Review, vol 82, #5 (June 2004) * * *"Soviet Espionage on American TV: The VENONA Story," Diplomatic History, Vol 27, no. 2 (Spring 2003), 279–82. * *"Free Speech on Campus: Academic Freedom and the Corporations," in Thomas R. Hensley, ed., The Boundaries of Freedom of Expression and Order in American Democracy, Kent State University Press, spring 2001 * *with Maurice Isserman, "The Right's Cold War Revisionism," The Nation, July 24/31, 2000 *"Left, Right, and Labor," Working USA (Jan-Feb 2000) *"McCarthy's Ghosts: Anticommunism and American Labor," New Labor Forum, Spring/Summer, 1999 *"The Spies Who Loved Us,"

(May 24, 1999) *"Will Technology Make Academic Freedom Obsolete?" in Will Teach for Food: Academic Labor in Crisis,

Cary Nelson Cary Nelson (1946), is an American professor emeritus of English and Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was president of the American Association of University Professors between 2 ...

, ed.

University of Minnesota Press The University of Minnesota Press is a university press that is part of the University of Minnesota. It had annual revenues of just over $8 million in fiscal year 2018. Founded in 1925, the University of Minnesota Press is best known for its boo ...

, 1997 *"Immigration and Internal Security: Political Deportations during the McCarthy Era," Science & Society 60 (4) Winter 1996-1997 *"Before the Rosenbergs: Espionage Scenarios in the Early Cold War" in Marjorie Garber and Rebecca Walkowitz, ed., Secret Agents: The Rosenberg Case and the McCarthy Era,

Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...

(1995) *"McCarthyism and the Communist Party," in Michael Brown et al. eds., New Studies in the Politics and Culture of U.S. Communism, Monthly Review Press, New York, 1993; reprinted in Andre Kaenel, ed., Anti-Communism and McCarthyism in the United States, Editions Messene, Paris, 1995 *"McCarthyism and the Labor Movement: The Role of the State," in Steve Rosswurm, ed., The CIO's Left‑Led Unions,

Rutgers University Press Rutgers University Press (RUP) is a nonprofit academic publishing house, operating in New Brunswick, New Jersey under the auspices of Rutgers University. History Rutgers University Press, a nonprofit academic publishing house operating in New B ...

, New Brunswick, NJ, 1992 *"Introduction" to Records of the Subversive Activities Control Board, 1950‑1972, University Publications of America, Frederick, MD, 1989 *"Archival Sources for the Study of McCarthyism,"

Journal of American History ''The Journal of American History'' is the official academic journal of the Organization of American Historians. It covers the field of American history and was established in 1914 as the ''Mississippi Valley Historical Review'', the official jo ...

, June 1988 *book and film reviews in

American Historical Review ''The American Historical Review'' is a quarterly academic history journal and the official publication of the American Historical Association. It targets readers interested in all periods and facets of history and has often been described as the ...

, Diplomatic History, History of Education Quarterly, Isis,

Labor History Labor history or labour history is a sub-discipline of social history which specialises on the history of the working classes and the labor movement. Labor historians may concern themselves with issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and other fac ...

, Labour/Le Travail, Monthly Review, The Nation, Pacific Historical Review,

Political Science Quarterly ''Political Science Quarterly'' is an American double blind peer-reviewed academic journal covering government, politics, and policy, published since 1886 by the Academy of Political Science. Its editor-in-chief is Robert Y. Shapiro (Columbia U ...

, Science and Society, Women's Review of Books, Journal of Cold War Studies,

H-Net __NOTOC__ H-Net ("Humanities & Social Sciences Online") is an interdisciplinary forum for scholars in the humanities and social sciences. It is best known for hosting electronic mailing lists organized by academic disciplines; according to the o ...

Notes

External links

Ellen Schrecker's Curriculum Vitaewith Ellen Schrecker
�by Stephen McKiernan, Binghamton University Libraries Center for the Study of the 1960s, May 19, 2011 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Schrecker Jewish American historians Historians of the United States Cold War historians Radcliffe College alumni Yeshiva University faculty 1938 births McCarthyism Living people 21st-century American historians American women historians 21st-century American women 21st-century American Jews