The CCNY Affair

Abstract

,%views THE CCNY AFFAIR LOUIS GREENSPAN Religious Studies / McMaster U. Hamilton, ON, Canada L8s 4K1 GREENSPN@MCMASTER.CA Thorn Weidlich. Appointment Denied: the Inquisition of Bertrand Russell. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2000. Pp. 233 + 8 (illus.). US$25.00. W hen the Board of Higher Education of the City of New York voted, in· February 1940, to offer Bertrand Russell a position as professor of philosophy at the City College of New York, they had no forewarning that their decision would touch off a cultural war as ferocious and divisive as any that we have experienced in recent decades. But unlike contemporary cultural wars, the CCNY dispute lasted only a few short months. It fizzled out because Russell's supporters were unwilling to commit themselves to an extended battle in the courts, and, Russell, needing an income, quietly accepted another position. The concerns that the cultural war raised were rapidly overshadowed by the military war that was taking place in Europe for, as the CCNY affair was ending, the Battle of Britain began. The controversy was never resurrected because it didn't seem to raise any issues of permanent importance. The charges that had been brought against Russell-that he was sceptical concerning the philosophical validity of any absolute moral claims, that he believed that young men and women should be able to live together outside the framework of marriage, that adultery should not be taken so seriously as to be the most solemnly recognized basis for divorce, and, in his wilder moments, that homosexuality should not be a criminal offence-. would hardly shake the moral foundations of any existing liberal democracy. In today's world of single mothers, sexual partnerships, Gay Pride and President Clinton's exegesis of what constitutes sexual relations, the storm over Russell's proposals seems as quaint as the Victorian debates over whether trains that were travelling over twelve miles an hour were breaking boundaries established by God. The CCNY affair is mainly remembered as a comedy. Its most celebrated document is attorney Joseph Goldstein's oft-repeated, colourful charge sheet which denounced Russell as "lecherous, libidinous, lustful , aphrodisiac, irreverent" and on and on-a document that Russell repeated with glee, boasting that his only predecessors were Apuleius and Othello. russell: the Journal of Bemand Russell Smdies The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. n.s. 2.0 (summer 2.000): 71-92. ISSN 0036-0163l 72 Reviews Thorn Weidlich's Appointment Denied restores the episode to its proper place in Russell's life, in the history of academic freedom and, indeed, in the intellectual history of our times. He argues that the affair was not trivial and certainly not comic, and that it opened issues that remain unresolved. On 26 February 1940, New York's Board of Higher Education approved the appointment of Bertrand Russell almost without discussion. It was one item in a full agenda of a liberal body that was meant to have an arm's length relationship to the government that had brought it into existence. Russell's appointment was so routine and without controversy that he was prepared to give up a position that he already held at UCLA (to the delight of the President of that institution). On I March, Bishop Manning, spiritual leader of the city's Episcopalian community, sent a letter to the press in which he announced his outrage at the decision, and included direct quotations from Russell's writings that he felt certain would arouse any New Yorker concerned about the moral rectitude of the city. His letter created an immediate sensation. It called into existence a coalition consisting of the Hearst press and the various Catholic associations of the city. The latter were mobilized into a high state of militancy . Even police and associations of war veterans were addressed, with warnings that Russell's moral endorsement of adultery would produce an epidemic of jealous, murderous male violence. As the pressure mounted, Board members were thrown into confusion and dismay. Many demanded that the appointment be reconsidered. On 18 March the Board met, again behind closed doors. But this time the corridors were invaded by over 200 observers. In a scene reminiscent of the...