In the 50’s, before being targeted by the House Unamerican Affairs Committee, Professor Lyman Bradley was chair of Germanic Studies at NYU and a major scholar in German literature. After losing his job and being sentenced to prison, when Lyman R. Bradley applied for a passport in 1961, he listed his occupation as “freelance writer.” In reality, he was eking out a living, exhibiting educational books for publishers at conventions. The odyssey of lack of support for this scholar includes roles played not only the GOP demons of that era but the lack of support of the NYU faculty and even the AAUP.
For more, read “The AAUP, Academic Freedom, and the Cold War” by Phillip Deerey. or NYU’s own sad records.