Source: http://yivoarchives.org/?p=collections/findingaid&id=34402&top=1
Timestamp: 2018-04-22 22:03:58
Document Index: 690678705

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 1', 'art 2', 'art 3', 'art 1', 'art 2', 'art 3', 'art 1', 'art 2', 'art 1', 'art 2', 'art 1', 'art 2', 'art 1', 'art 2', 'art 1', 'art 2', 'art 1', 'art 2', 'art 3', 'art 3']

Guide to the Records of the Board of Higher Education of the City of New York 1941-1957 bulk 1941-1942 RG 1368
Collection-level Record Finding Aid: Guide to the Records of the Board of Higher Education of the City of New York 1941-1957 bulk 1941-1942 RG 1368
Series I: Case files of the Board of Higher Education of the City of New York, related to the Rapp-Coudert investigations
Series II: Materials related to the New York City Board of Education Commission on Integration
Processed by YIVO Archivists in the 1990s. Additional processing completed and finding aid compiled and encoded by Violet Lutz under a Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives project from the Council on Library and Information Resources through the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded to the Center for Jewish History
Electronic finding aid was encoded in EAD 2002 by Violet Lutz in January 2013. Customized in Archon in 2014. Description is in English.
Title: Guide to the Records of the Board of Higher Education of the City of New York 1941-1957 bulk 1941-1942 RG 1368
Predominant Dates:bulk 1941-1942
ID: RG 1368 FA
The collection had previously been housed in archival boxes, with the records generally grouped according to the cases of individuals tried by the Board of Higher Education. Some of these groupings were inside of cardboard dividers labeled with the name of the given case (one divider was labeled with two names, Morris Cohen and Sidney Eisenberger). During the present processing the collection was housed in archival folders; the folders titled according to the individual cases; and the cases arranged in the present order for ease of access. The packet of materials relating to the Commission on Integration (which had been in the middle of the case files) was placed at the end of the collection as a separate series.
Arrangement Series I: Case files of the Board of Higher Education of the City of New York, related to the Rapp-Coudert investigations, 1941-1944 Subseries 1: Cases related to Communist Party ties, 1941-1942 Subseries 2: Cases related to the "Chemkit" affair, 1941-1942 Subseries 3: Miscellaneous items found among the Board of Higher Education files, undated, 1944 Series II: New York City Board of Education Commission on Integration materials, 1956-1957
This collection comprises trial transcripts and related documents pertaining to trials conducted by the Board of Higher Education in 1941 to 1942, in the cases of 20 faculty and staff members of City College and Brooklyn College. The charges, mostly relating to Communist Party membership and activities, were brought by the Board's Conduct Committee, based on allegations raised in investigative hearings held in 1941 by the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate the Educational System of the State of New York, a committee of the New York State Legislature commonly known as the Rapp-Coudert Committee. In addition, the collection includes a small amount of material documenting the work of the New York City Board of Education's Integration Commission in 1956 to 1957.
The collection primarily comprises trial transcripts and other documents related to trials conducted by the Board of Higher Education in 1941 to 1942, in cases of faculty and staff members who were brought up on charges by the Board's Conduct Committee ( Series I ). It also includes a small amount material (reports and press releases), documenting the work of the Integration Commission of the New York City Board of Education in 1956 to 1957 ( Series II ).
The Board of Higher Education cases were based on allegations raised in investigative hearings held in 1941 by Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate the Educational System of the State of New York, a committee of the New York State Legislature commonly known as the Rapp-Coudert Committee. The documents pertain to the cases of 20 individuals, 18 employed at City College, and two at Brooklyn College. These 20 cases represent only a portion, perhaps not more than half of the trials conducted by the Board of Higher Education in this time period. It is unknown what selection of cases the files represent.
It appears that the materials related to the Board of Higher Education trials were copies collected by Joseph Schlossberg, in the course of his activities as a member of the Board at the time. Eight of the case files (John K. Ackley, Saul Bernstein, Arthur R. Braunlich, Jr., Philip S. Foner, Murray Gristle, Max Louis Hutt, Walter S. Neff, and Murray Smolar) contain notes in Schlossberg's hand, usually highlighting or summarizing points in the transcripts of the trials or public hearings. In one case, that of Morris U. Cohen, Schlossberg was a member of the three-person Trial Board (the documents in that file do not, however, bear any notes by him). In another case, that of Max Louis Hutt, a cover letter for one set of documents shows Schlossberg as a member of the Trial Committee at an early point (Folder 19). He was not a member of the Trial Committee as listed in the trial transcript (which has some notes by him); there the name of Marion R. Mack appears in place of his (Folder 20).
The Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate the Educational System of the State of New York (Rapp-Coudert Committee)
The Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate the Educational System of the State of New York, commonly known as the Rapp-Coudert Committee, after its co-chairs, Assemblyman Herbert Rapp and State Senator Frederic Coudert, was established in 1940 by a joint resolution of the New York State Legislature. On a national level at this time the House Un-American Activities Committee (created in 1938), under Martin Dies, was investigating Communist influences in public life. The atmosphere of a ‘red scare’ intensified after the forming of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact in August 1939.
The official aim of the Rapp-Coudert Committee was to “investigate the procedures and methods of allocating state moneys for public school purposes and subversive activities” (qtd. in Leberstein 94). A subcommittee for New York City, led by Senator Coudert, with attorney Paul Windels acting as committee counsel, held public hearings in 1941 to 1942.
In practice, the investigations focused on the issue of Communist Party influence at the public colleges, with particular scrutiny of the New York City Teachers Union. The Union at the time had an influential ‘Rank and File Caucus’ that included some members who belonged to the Communist Party. Formerly the Local 5 of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the New York local had lost its AFT charter in the summer of 1940, in part over the issue of Communist Party influence (Leberstein 114-115).
The hearings operated in an atmosphere that encouraged those who admitted present or past Communist Party membership to inform on colleagues regarding party membership and activities. One of the few willing informers was William Canning, a history instructor at Brooklyn College, who identified more than 50 faculty and staff members as party members (Caute 431).
The Board of Higher Education trials
The planned investigations of the state’s educational system were viewed by some as an attack on public education. On April 7, 1940, a week after the vote of the New York State Legislature, the American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom, a civil libertarian group under the national chairmanship of anthropologist Franz Boas, held a rally at Carnegie Hall to protest the establishment of the committee. The sponsors of the rally included members of the Board of Higher Education, the governing board of the city’s public colleges. Specifically, the sponsors included Ordway Tead, the chairman of the Board, and the Board members Harry J. Carman and Joseph Schlossberg (Leberstein 96).
Initial ambivalence notwithstanding, in the course of time the Board of Higher Education cooperated fully with the Rapp-Coudert investigations (Leberstein 98-100). A specially constituted Conduct Committee of the Board brought charges against faculty and staff who had been the focus of the public hearings of Senator Coudert’s subcommittee. Membership in the Communist Party was not illegal; however, in accordance with a resolution passed by the Board in March 1941, simply being a member of the party, or any organization that advocated subversive doctrines, was deemed to be sufficient grounds for dismissal, without regard to any specifics of the individual’s conduct on the job.
Typically, charges included Communist Party membership; activities related to the party, such as participation in the writing and editing of the Teacher-Worker , a newsletter of a Communist Party unit active at City College; and obstruction of justice for giving false testimony at the hearings of the legislative committee (if the individual had denied party membership). Individuals found guilty of such charges were considered to have engaged in ‘conduct unbecoming’ a staff member and possibly ‘neglect of duty,’ both offenses that were official grounds for dismissal under the bylaws.
In all, at least 31 employees of City College were suspended from their positions and brought up on charges by the Conduct Committee (Leberstein 104). The first employee to be dismissed from his position was John Kenneth Ackley, the registrar at City College, who was dismissed on 30 June 1941.
Many years later, in October 1981, the City University of New York Board of Trustees (the successor to the Board of Higher Education) adopted a resolution apologizing to faculty and staff of the public colleges who were dismissed or forced to resign as a result of the Rapp-Coudert investigations (Leberstein 119).
Joseph Schlossberg, 1875-1971
The records related to the Board of Higher Education trials found in the present collection appear to have been the files of Board member Joseph Schlossberg. Schlossberg was appointed to the Board of Higher Education by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in 1935 and served on it for 28 years, until his retirement in 1963. As mentioned above, Schlossberg was among the sponsors of a rally organized in April 1940 by the American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom to protest the establishment of the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate the Educational System of the State of New York.
Born in 1875 in Koidanov in the Russian Empire (today, Dzyarzhynsk, Belarus), Joseph Schlossberg emigrated with his family to the United States in 1888. Residing in New York City, Schlossberg attended public school for just one year, and then began work as a cloakmaker in the garment industry. He also joined the Socialist Labor party and was active in organizing garment workers in the 1890s. Later, he studied political science at Columbia University, from 1905 to 1907.
Schlossberg played a significant role in the American labor movement. In 1913 he was elected secretary of the Joint Board of the United Brotherhood of Tailors, which, in a general strike the year before, had gone against the wishes of its parent organization, the United Garment Workers of America (UGW). In 1914 he was a co-founder of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, made up of locals seceding from the more conservative UGW, and served as its first general secretary-treasurer from 1914 until 1940. He edited the Yiddish-language labor newspapers Dos Abend Blatt (a daily), from 1899 to 1902, and Der Arbeiter (a weekly), from 1904 to 1911. He was a prolific writer on labor problems for both the English and Yiddish press, and published a collection of essays, The Workers and their World , in 1935.
Long a Zionist, Schlossberg was a charter member of the National Committee for Labor Israel, and served as its chair, beginning in 1934. He served on the boards of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the American Association for Jewish Education. He also served on the National Committees of the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Workers Defense League.
Schlossberg died in his home in the Bronx at the age of 95, on 15 January 1971.
Commission on Integration of the New York City Board of Education
The Commission on Integration was established by the New York City Board of Education (the predecessor of the Department of Education) in the spring of 1955, on the basis of a resolution of the Board on 23 December 1954. It was charged with examining the racial composition of the city schools and making recommendations for achieving racial integration. The Commission was established in response to the historic Supreme Court decision Brown v. the Board of Education, of May 17, 1954, which overturned the 1896 decision Plessy v. Ferguson, and determined that the segregation of children in the public school system solely on the basis of race deprived them of equal educational opportunities, since “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” The Commission had 37 members, including 23 civic and educational leaders; nine Board of Education members; and five members of the Board’s professional staff. It was constituted as a temporary body that was dissolved upon making its final report to the Board of Education in 1957 or 1958.
Caute, David. "New York teachers on trial," chapter 23 in: The great fear: the anti-Communist purge under Truman and Eisenhower . New York: Simon and Schuster, c1978. 431-432 ("Pre-history of a purge").
"Joseph Schlossberg dies at 95; co-founder of clothing union." New York Times , 16 January 1971.
Leberstein, Stephen. "Purging the profs: the Rapp Coudert Committee in New York, 1940-1942." New Studies in the politics and culture of U.S. Communism . Ed. Michael E. Brown, et al. New York: Monthly Review Press, c1993. 91-122.
"Schlossberg, Joseph." Biographical dictionary of American labor leaders . Ed. Gary M. Fink. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, c1974. 320-321.
"Schlossberg, Joseph." Who's who in world Jewry: a biographical dictionary of outstanding Jews . Ed. Harry Schneiderman and Itzak J. Carmin. New York: Who's Who in World Jewry, 1955. 672.
1917-, Academic freedom, Ackley, John K. (John Kenneth), Braunlich, Arthur R. (Arthur Richard), Brooklyn College, City University of New York. City College, Communist Party of the United States of America, Documents - Legal documents, Documents - Reports, Documents - Transcripts, Foner, Philip Sheldon, 1910-1994, Neff, Walter S. (Walter Scott), 1910-1997, New York, New York (N.Y.), New York (N.Y.). Board of Education. Commission on Integration, New York (N.Y.). Board of Higher Education, Schlossberg, Joseph, 1875-, Teachers' Union of the City of New York
Acquisition Method: The collection was received some time between 1957 and 1964. The bulk of the materials appears to have been the files of Joseph Schlossberg.
Related Materials: Related Material Other collections containing materials directly related to the Board of Higher Education trials of 1941 to 1942 include: Board of Higher Education of the City of New York: Academic Freedom Case Files (TAM.332), Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University Libraries, New York, N.Y. Morris U. Schappes Papers (P-57), American Jewish Historical Society, Center for Jewish History, New York, N.Y. Related to the background of the Board of Higher Education cases, the New York State Joint Legislative Committee on the State Education System Investigation Files of the Rapp-Coudert Committee are held at the New York State Archives; a microfilm version is available at The Tamiment Libary and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University Libraries, N.Y. ( Investigation Files of the Rapp-Coudert Committee; TAM.533 ) Records of the Commission on Integration of the New York City Board of Education are found in the Board of Education records held at the New York City municipal archives.
Preferred Citation: Published citations should take the following form:Identification of item, date (if known); Records of the Board of Higher Education of the City of New York; RG 1368; box number; folder number; YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
Series 1: Series I: Case files of the Board of Higher Education of the City of New York, related to the Rapp-Coudert investigations, 1941-1944,
Series 2: Series II: Materials related to the New York City Board of Education Commission on Integration, 1956-1957
This series contains documents related to trials conducted by the Board of Higher Education in 1941 to 1942, based on allegations raised in investigative hearings held in 1941 by the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate the Educational System of the State of New York, a committee of the New York State Legislature commonly known as the Rapp-Coudert Committee.
The case files generally contain the following types of documents: 1. Trial exhibit presented by the Conduct Committee of the Board of Higher Education, consisting of a relevant excerpt from the transcript of the public hearings held by the Committee to Investigate the Educational System of the State of New York; 2. Charges brought by the Conduct Committee; 3. Answer of the respondent to the charges; 4. Trial transcript; and 5. Report of the Trial Committee (or Trial Board), which summarizes the findings and makes a recommendation of action to be taken.
Subseries 1: Cases related to Communist Party ties
The cases in this subseries concern alleged Communist Party membership and related activities.
Arrangement: The case files are arranged alphabetically, by name of the individual charged.
Folder 1: Case of John K. Ackley, Registrar, City College (1 of 4)
Conduct Committee exhibit (excerpt from public hearings transcript); charges (2 copies); answer of respondent; report of Trial Committee, with cover letter to members of the Board, from Charles H. Tuttle, chair of Trial Committee; unidentified fragment
Folder 2: Case of John K. Ackley (2 of 4) - Trial transcript (part 1 of 3)
Folder 3: Case of John K. Ackley (3 of 4) - Trial transcript (part 2 of 3)
Labeled by hand "Mr. Schlossberg" at top of first page.
Folder 4: Case of John K. Ackley (4 of 4) - Trial transcript (part 3 of 3)
Folder 5: Case of Saul Bernstein, Instructor of Biology, City College (1 of 2)
March-November 1941
Conduct Committee exhibit (excerpt from public hearings transcript); charges; answer of respondent; report of Trial Committee
Folder 6: Case of Saul Bernstein (2 of 2) - Trial transcript
Folder 7: Case of Arthur R. Braunlich, Jr., Tutor of English, City College (1 of 4)
Folder 8: Case of Arthur R. Braunlich, Jr. (2 of 4) - Trial transcript (part 1 of 3)
Folder 9: Case of Arthur R. Braunlich, Jr. (3 of 4) - Trial transcript (part 2 of 3)
Folder 10: Case of Arthur R. Braunlich, Jr. (4 of 4) - Trial transcript (part 3 of 3)
Folder 11: Case of Morris U. Cohen, Instructor of Chemistry, City College
April-October 1941
Conduct Committee exhibit (excerpt from public hearings transcript); charges; answer of respondent; trial transcript
Folder 12: Case of Sidney Eisenberger, Instructor of Chemistry, City College
Folder 13: Case of Morris ("Moe") Foner (brother of Philip Foner), Clerk, Office of the Registrar, City College
Conduct Committee exhibit (excerpt from public hearings transcript); charges; answer of respondent
Folder 14: Case of Philip S. Foner (brother of Moe Foner), Instructor of History, City College (1 of 3)
April-November 1941
Conduct Committee exhibit (excerpt from public hearings transcript); charges; answer of respondent; majority report of Trial Committee, with concurring opinion
Folder 15: Case of Philip S. Foner (2 of 3) - Trial transcript (part 1 of 2)
Folder 16: Case of Philip S. Foner (3 of 3) - Trial transcript (part 2 of 2)
Folder 17: Case of Murray Gristle, Clerk and Tutor, Department of Education, City College
April-circa May 1942
Conduct Committee exhibit (excerpt from public hearings transcript); trial transcript; report of Trial Board
Folder 18: Case of Max Louis Hutt, Instructor of Education, City College (1 of 5)
Folder 19: Case of Max Louis Hutt (2 of 5)
Cover letter to Joseph Schlossberg and other members of Trial Committee, from Pearl Bernstein, Board of Higher Education; enclosures: charges, answer of respondent
Folder 20: Case of Max Louis Hutt (3 of 5) - Trial transcript (part 1 of 2)
Folder 21: Case of Max Louis Hutt (4 of 5) - Trial transcript (part 2 of 2)
Folder 22: Case of Max Louis Hutt (5 of 5)
Report of Trial Committee, with cover letter to members of the Board, from Pearl Bernstein, Board of Higher Education
Folder 23: Case of Louis Lerman, Clerk, Department of Education, City College
Trial transcript; report of Trial Board, with cover letter to the Board, from H. N. Wright, Acting President, City College
Folder 24: Case of Samuel Margolis, Library Assistant, Library of City College (1 of 2)
Trial transcript (part 1 of 2)
Folder 25: Case of Samuel Margolis (2 of 2)
Trial transcript (part 2 of 2)
Folder 26: Case of Jesse Mintus, Clerk, Office of the Registrar, City College
Folder 27: Case of Walter Scott Neff, Instructor of Psychology, City College (1 of 2)
Folder 28: Case of Walter Scott Neff (2 of 2) - Trial transcript
Folder 29: Case of Murray Smolar, Clerk, Office of the Registrar, City College
Folder 30: Case of Francis J. Thompson, Instructor of Public Speaking, Department of Public Speaking, City College (1 of 3)
Folder 31: Case of Francis J. Thompson (2 of 3) - Trial transcript (part 1 of 2)
Folder 32: Case of Francis J. Thompson (3 of 3) - Trial transcript (part 2 of 2)
Folder 33: Case of William J. Withrow, Instructor of Chemistry, City College (1 of 3)
Conduct Committee exhibit (excerpt from public hearings transcript); answer of respondent; amended charges
Folder 34: Case of William J. Withrow (2 of 3) - Trial transcript (part 1 of 2)
Folder 35: Case of William J. Withrow (3 of 3) - Trial transcript (part 2 of 2)
Folder 36: Case of Hilliard Wolfson, Clerk, Department of Education, City College
circa March-December 1941
Conduct Committee exhibit (public hearings transcript); charges; answer of respondent; trial transcript; report of Trial Board, with cover letter to the Board of Higher Education, from H. N. Wright, Acting President, City College
Subseries 2: Cases related to the "Chemkit" affair
The cases in this subseries pertain to faculty in the Chemistry departments at City College or Brooklyn College who were alleged to have a financial interest in the Kemkit Corporation (formerly known as Star Laboratories), which sold chemistry kits to students at the colleges under an exclusive arrangement.
Arrangement: In this subseries, the first two cases, of David Hart and Frederic L. Weber, are closely related; the documents pertaining only to Hart and only to Weber (Folders 37 and 38, respectively), are followed by a joint trial transcript, which is consecutively numbered throughout (Folders 39-42). These cases are followed by the separate case of William G. C. Hübner (Folders 43 and 44).
Folder 37: Case of David Hart, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, and Chair of the Chemistry Department, Brooklyn College
Conduct Committee exhibit (excerpt from public hearings transcript); charges; answer of respondent; supplemental answer of respondent. See also the trial transcript in the joint cases of Hart and Frederic L. Weber, Folders 39-42 (below)
Folder 38: Case of Frederic L. Weber, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, City College
Conduct Committee exhibit (excerpt from public hearings transcript); charges (2 copies); answer of respondent; supplemental answer of respondent. See also the trial transcript in the joint cases of Weber and David Hart, Folders 39-42 (below)
Folder 39: Cases of David Hart and Frederic L. Weber
Transcript of joint trial - part 1 of 4; concerns Hart
Folder 40: Cases of David Hart and Frederic L. Weber
Transcript of joint trial - part 2 of 4; concerns Hart
Folder 41: Cases of David Hart and Frederic L. Weber
Transcript of joint trial - part 3 of 4; concerns Weber
Folder 42: Cases of David Hart and Frederic L. Weber
Transcript of joint trial - part 3 of 4; concerns both Hart and Weber
Folder 43: Case of William G. C. Hübner, Senior Chemist, Brooklyn College (1 of 2)
August-November 1941
Conduct Committee exhibit (excerpt from public hearings transcript); charges (2 copies); answer of respondent
Folder 44: Case of William G. C. Hübner (2 of 2) - Trial transcript
Subseries 3: Miscellaneous items found among the Board of Higher Education files
Folder 45: Joseph Schlossberg, "List of cases"
Handwritten list of 23 names (17 of which correspond to case files in the present collection), originally found in the accompanying envelope of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America; includes a marginal note: "Copy minutes of the Board of Higher Education for 1941." This item was found in the vicinity of the documents related to the trial of Max Louis Hutt (see Subseries I.1 , above)
Folder 46: Letter from Harry J. Carman to Joseph Schlossberg
Encloses a report of a committee of the New York Adult Education Council: "Post-war adult education in New York City: toward a tax-supported program" (dated November 17, 1943/March 10, 1944). This item was found laid in the trial transcript for the case of Arthur R. Braunlich, Jr. (see Subseries I.1 , above)
The single packet of materials found in this series can be dated to May to August 1957, since the cover letter makes reference to the expected publication of the full report on the Commission in September 1957. Given the generic formulation of the cover letter, it appears that these materials were available to the general public upon request.
Folder 47: New York City Board of Education Commission on Integration.
Undated form letter responding to a request for information on the Commission, with the following enclosures: reports of the six working sub-commissions (Guidance, Educational Stimulation and Placement; Educational Standards and Curriculum; Physical Plant and Maintenance; Teachers Assignments and Personnel; Zoning; and Community Relations and Information), dated March 1956-May 1957; a resume on the commission, dated October 1956; and two press releases, dated February 1957