"Worse Than McCarthyism": Historian Ellen Schrecker on Trump's War Against Universities & Students

[Uncle Joe]

We speak with esteemed historian scholar Ellen Schrecker about the Trump administration's assault on universities and the crackdown on dissent, a climate of fear and censorship she describes as "worse than McCarthyism."

"During the McCarthy period, it was attacking only individual professors and only about their sort of extracurricular political activities on the left. … Today, the repression that's coming out of Washington, D.C., it attacks everything that happens on American campuses," says Schrecker. "The damage that the Trump administration is doing is absolutely beyond the pale and has never, never been equaled in American life with regard to higher education."

Schrecker is the author of many books about the McCarthy era, Cold War politics and right-wing attacks on academic freedom. Her recent piece for The Nation is headlined "Worse Than McCarthyism: Universities in the Age of Trump."

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[Martin68]

1. It's actually more like Pol Potism or Maoism, focused on intellectuals rather than communists.

[CBHagman]

2. Thank you for posting this.

I was not familiar with Schrecker, but of course the parallel to McCarthyism is not unexpected, for multiple reasons...

[Uncle Joe]

3. Thank you

This is the first time that I've seen her as well.

She seems pretty sharp to me.