College Campus Dissent in the 1960s: A Review Essay

Abstract

Protests and Dangerous IdeasU.S. College Campuses in the 1960s Jason S. Lantzer (bio) Radicals in the Heartland: The 1960s Student Protest Movement at the University of Illinois By Michael V. Metz (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2019. Pp. ix, 269. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Clothbound, $110.00; paperbound, $26.95.) Dangerous Ideas on Campus: Sex, Conspiracy, and Academic Freedom in the Age of JFK By Matthew C. Ehrlich (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2021. Pp. vii, 216. Illustrations, notes, index. Clothbound, $110.00; paperbound, $24.95.) Matthew C. Ehrlich's Dangerous Ideas on Campus: Sex, Conspiracy, and Academic Freedom in the Age of JFK presents an account of free speech debates at the University of Illinois in the early 1960s. Ehrlich considers two faculty-inspired cases that defined the Urbana campus for the tumultuous decade and beyond. The first is that of Leo Koch, whose contract to teach was terminated after he wrote a letter to the editor advocating a relaxing of societal norms towards sexual relations, including how they played out on the campus. The second case occurred in the wake of Koch's firing, and involved Classics professor Revilo Oliver, an increasingly radicalized right-wing figure at Illinois, who advanced not just anti-communism and antisemitism, but also conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Ehrlich's account of how the university handled these two ideologically different cases reveals how they were ultimately related, beyond taking place on the same campus. Despite their opposite ideological positions, both Koch and Oliver pushed and prodded the existing hierarchy, challenging the university's leadership, headed by President David Henry. Dangerous Ideas on Campus is driven forward narratively by Ehrlich's prose as well as the campus guide he provides the reader in the person of University of Illinois undergraduate Roger Ebert. The eventually famous movie critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist first burst onto the newsroom scene covering some of the events Ehrlich describes. As a result, readers who might otherwise be unfamiliar with various aspects of law, campus life, politics, or just Illinois outside of Chicago, are given a familiar voice to help them navigate what at times is a disturbing and complex story. The chief strengths of Ehrlich's account are the questions he poses for readers to consider. What is the responsibility of the academic community to professors? What is the difference between free speech and academic freedom? These are important questions that Americans and the nation's universities still wrestle with. Ehrlich also highlights the irony that Koch, the liberal, was fired over exercising opinions about sexual relations between college students and the univerity's stance in loco parentis that eventually became the norm nationally, noting that the blowback over the university's decision to terminate him likely saved Oliver, the conservative, from a similar fate. Facing disgruntled faculty, parents, students, state politicians, and an official inquiry by the American Association of University Professors, the University of Illinois had no stomach for taking on Oliver's stances on a variety of issues. Perhaps one of the more interesting things Ehrlich touches on in his tightly written book, though he does not explore the issue in [End Page 80] depth, is how the status of these two men mattered. Koch was a contract instructor, what we might deem contingent faculty today. Oliver, on the other hand, was a tenured faculty member. If, as Ehrlich notes, tenured faculty are a check on campus administrations, then it is worth pondering the current state of higher education and how that effects modern campus discussions of both free speech and academic freedom. John F. Kennedy, pictured on the cover of Ehrlich's book at a 1960 campaign stop on the campus, is important for our memory and understanding of the 1960s. His election and presidential term, cut short by his murder, provide a convenient demarcation between the decade as Ehrlich describes it and the one that Michael Metz guides us through. Like all historical demarcation lines it is somewhat arbitrary, imperfect, and yet accurate. American life did change in the wake of Kennedy's assassination. Metz's narrative picks up where Ehrlich's ends. Radicals in the...