Clark Kerr
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Clark Kerr (May 17, 1911 – December 1, 2003) was the first Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley (1952–1958) and the 12th President of the University of California (1958–1967).
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[edit] Academic background
Kerr earned an A.B. from Swarthmore College in 1932, an M.A. from Stanford University in 1933, and a Ph.D. in economics from UC Berkeley in 1939. In 1945, he became an associate professor of industrial relations and was the founding director of the Institute of Industrial Relations.
[edit] Chancellor of UC
During the McCarthy era in 1949, the Regents of the University of California adopted an anti-communist loyalty oath to be signed by all University of California employees. Kerr signed the oath, but fought against the firing of those who refused to sign. Kerr gained respect from his stance and was named UC Berkeley's first chancellor when that position was created in 1952. As chancellor, Kerr oversaw the construction of 12 high-rise dormitories and was the Regents' choice for president when the position opened in 1958.
[edit] UC President
Kerr's term as UC president saw the opening of campuses in San Diego, Irvine, and Santa Cruz to accommodate the influx of baby boomers. Faced with a dramatic increase of students entering college, Kerr helped establish the now much-copied California system of having the handful of University of California campuses act as 'top tier' research institutions, the more numerous California State University campuses handle the bulk of undergraduate students and the very numerous California Community College campuses provide vocational and transfer-oriented college programs to the masses. (See California Master Plan for Higher Education.)
[edit] 1960s student protests
Controversy exploded in 1964 when Berkeley students led the Free Speech Movement in protest of regulations limiting political activities on campus, including protests against the Vietnam war. It culminated in hundreds of arrested students at a sit-in. Kerr’s initial decision was to not expel University of California students that participated in sit-ins off campus. That decision evolved into resistance to expel students who later would protest on campus in a series of escalating events on the Berkeley campus in late 1964. Kerr was criticized both by students for not agreeing to their demands and by conservative UC Regent Edwin Pauley and others for responding too leniently to the student unrest.
[edit] CIA and FBI Directors and Ronald Reagan target Kerr for removal
In 2002, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the FBI had blacklisted Kerr as part of a campaign to suppress people at UC deemed subversive. This information had been classified by the FBI and was only released after a fifteen-year legal battle that went all the way to the US Supreme Court. President Lyndon Johnson had picked Kerr to become secretary of Health, Education and Welfare but withdrew the nomination after the FBI background check on Kerr included damaging information the agency knew to be false.
Pauley approached the CIA Director John McCone (a Berkeley alum and associate) for assistance. McCone in turn met with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.[1] [2] Hoover agreed to supply Pauley with confidential FBI information on "ultra-liberal" regents, faculty members, and students, and to assist in removing Kerr. Pauley received dozens of briefings from the FBI to this end. (See entry on Edwin Pauley for details.) The FBI assisted Pauley and Ronald Reagan in painting Kerr as a dangerous "liberal."
Kerr's perceived leniency was key in Ronald Reagan's election as Governor of California in 1966 and in Kerr's dismissal as president by the university’s Board of Regents in 1967. In response, Kerr stated that he left the university just as he entered it: "fired with enthusiasm".
Kerr’s second memoir, The Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California, 1949-1967 Volume Two: Political Turmoil details what he refers to as his greatest blunders in dealing with the Free Speech Movement that ultimately led to his firing.
[edit] Life after Berkeley
Following his firing, Kerr served on the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education until 1973 and was chairman of the Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education from 1974–1979.
In 1986, the Clark Kerr Campus of UC Berkeley opened, named in honor of Kerr. A few blocks from the main campus, it includes residences and sports practice facilities. The Spanish-style residential complex houses 700 students and features landscaped gardens and a conference center. It had previously been the California School for the Deaf, but the University was able to acquire it by having it condemned as seismically unsafe, forcing the School to move, then taking it over.
Kerr died in his sleep following complications from a fall at age 92.
The Clark Kerr Medal is named in his honor.
[edit] Trivia
Kerr Hall on the campus of UC Davis, on top of which is the antenna for KDVS, is named for Clark Kerr.
[edit] External links
- U.C. Berkeley news release
- San Francisco Chronicle, "Reagan, Hoover, and the UC Red Scare," 9 June, 2002.
- AP obituary
- NPR All Things Considered - Educator Clark Kerr Dies at 92
- account of secret files of the FBI on Kerr, and Kerr's ouster.
[edit] References
- Kerr, Clark, The Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California, 1949-1967
- Kerr, Clark, The Uses of the University
- Burress, Charles. "The Long, Hard Years at Berkley; Second Volume of Clark Kerr’s
Memoir Covers Politics and ‘Blunders’” San Francisco Chronicle 9 Feb. 2003, Sunday Review Pg. 1.
- “UC Won’t Expel Sit-in Students” Los Angeles Times 6 May 1964, Pg. 8.
- “The Arrests at Berkley” New York Times 5 Dec. 1964, Pg 30.
| Preceded by — |
Chancellor of UC Berkeley 1952–1958 |
Succeeded by Glenn T. Seaborg |
| Preceded by Robert Gordon Sproul |
President of the University of California 1958–1967 |
Succeeded by Harry R. Wellman |
