Benedict College Mystery Solved, Part 1

This blogpost is preceded by

• "Timmerman attacks, Spring 1957"
•  "Timmerman attacks, Spring 1958"
• "Timmerman attacks: Allen University and Benedict College"
• "Timmerman attacks: the Benedict professors"
• "Timmerman attacks: the Allen University professors"
• Timmerman Attacks: Hoffman Update"
• "What was Forrest O. Wiggins up to?"
• "What's in an FBI record?"

Horace B. Davis in 1953
University of Kansas City, the Kangaroo Yearbook (1954), Ancestory.com, pg. 56

The mystery of why South Carolina Governor George Bell Timmerman Jr. attacked the HBCUs Allen and Benedict may be solved! One of the dismissed Benedict professors Horace Davis wrote an autobiography Liberalism is Not Enough that discusses his time in South Carolina. His account suggests that the governor's attacks have a rather obscure origin: Horace's opposition to a Supreme Court Justice appointment. Moreover, the issue had nothing to do with South Carolina. Rather, it was related to his time in Missouri.

Horace and his wife Marion were academics from the east coast. (They'd met as graduate students in the economics department at Columbia University.) However, they had unusual career trajectories. Both were very politically active and involved with the labor movement. While both had taught both at the college and high school level, Horace had also spent considerable time working for the labor movement. He even worked as a steelworker for a period. Of the college professors in South Carolina, Horace and Marion appears to have been only ones that were actual card-carrying Communists. (KCU officials claimed Horace had been a Communist since 1929, but I've had a hard time tracking down the specifics.)

In 1947, after several years of working in labor, Horace decided to return to academics and accepted a faculty position at Kansas City University (now University of Missouri–Kansas City) in Kansas City, Missouri. Starting in the late 1940s, tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union began to rise, and university professors who were supportive of Communism began to be regarded with suspicion. Horace became concerned that he might lose his job because of his past political activity.

Horace's fears were realized in 1953, after he'd been at KCU for six years. In June of that year, he was subpoenaed to appear before the Senate Internal Security (SIS) subcommittee. This subcommittee was charged with investigating Communist activities, and it was essentially the Senate equivalent of the more familiar House Un-American Activities Committee. At the time, SIS was headed by Indiana Senator William E. Jenner, a staunch supporter of McCarthyism. 

When Horace appeared before the subcommittee, most subcommittee members weren't present. Of the nine senators, only Jenner was in attendance. He was joined by two staffers, Chief Counsel Robert Morris and Director of Research Benjamin Mandel. 

Horace was very combative at the subcommittee hearing. His testimony began with Senator Jenner asking him to state his name. Horace responded by explaining why he thought the subcommittee was operating illegally. Horace never ended up stating his name, and this set the tone for the hearing. After answering some questions about his current employment (that he was an associate professor at KCU and was teaching two classes, one with ten students and one with eighteen), Chief Counsel Morris asked Horace if he had been faculty at Columbia University. Horace refused to answer the question, citing his fifth amendment right (against bearing witness against himself) and his first amendment right (to the freedom of assembly). He proceeded to refuse to answer all further questions except a question about where he'd obtained his college degrees. 

Most of the subcommittee's questions were about whether he'd been involved in alleged Communist activities ("Were you active in the Workers Alliance of the United States?"). Earlier, the subcommittee had met with Horace in executive session, so presumably they expected him to refuse to answer their questions and were asking them to get them into the public record. 

Horace continued to challenge the subcommittee after his testimony. Later in the hearing, when the subcommittee was questioning another professor, Horace passed out a written abstract of his testimony (about the illegality of the subcommittee) to people in attendance. When the hearing was over, Horace told reporters that the subcommittee's activities was nothing other than an illegitimate attempt to control education.

Senator William E. Jenner
From Wikipedia

Horace's testimony attracted the attention of the KCU trustees. A month after the hearing the University President's Advisory Council recommended to the trustees that Davis be investigated. Later that month Horace was asked to meet with trustees. 

Horace met with the trustees, along with university administrators, in early August. At the meeting, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees explained to Horace that no charges had been filed against him, but they wanted to discuss his SIS testimony with him. Horace responded by reading a prepared statement about academic freedom. The chairman then directly asked Horace if he'd been a member of the Communist Party or otherwise had supported Communist activities. He also asked whether Horace had been a college faculty member during the period from 1941 to 1946. (The chairman was likely trying to get Horace to admit that he'd been faculty at the School for Democracy, a school SIS had identified as a "Communist school.") Horace refunds to answer the questions. Six days later Horace was presented with charges that were proposed as the basis for terminating his employment. 

The charges against Horace were as follows:

1. that he had failed to disclose "pertinent information in regard to [his] prior teaching experience" when he applied to KCU.
2. that he refused to answer the trustees' questions.

A hearing on the charges was held in December. At the hearing, university counsel explained that the first charge related to Horace's employment at the School for Democracy. Horace had taught there part-time in spring 1942, but in his KCU job application, he had not disclosed this. Instead, he described his employment during this period as "work as Research Director of three different national unions" and "staff on two civic organizations." University counsel then proceeded to spend the first two days of the hearing describing how the school was "Communist-created" and served as a "[adjunct] of the Communist Party."

At the hearing, university counsel also elaborated on second charge. He explained that Horace's refusal itself was not grounds for termination, but it established that Horace had "commitments which render him unfit to continue in a position of educational trust." Upon being asked to clarify the nature of those commitments, counsel stated that he would prove Horace was a Communist.

Horace responded to the university's charges by reading a prepared statement. In his statement, he denied (1) engaging in any conspiracy against the government, (2) having any commitment that would interfere with his duties, and (3) engaging in propaganda in the classroom. He further explained that he was refusing to answer questions on general principle. 

Most of the hearing was spent with university general counsel submitting evidence to establish that Horace was a Communist. Horace's lawyer asked for a four-week continuance of the hearing in order to address the allegation. The request was denied. Horace's lawyer proceeded to present evidence demonstrating Horace's fitness as a teacher. For example, one of his former students testified that Davis taught subjects objectively and fairly. Predictably, the hearing tribunal was unconvinced. They unanimously recommended his dismissal. 

The university announced its decision in mid-December. A university official explained the decision to reporters as follows:

No member of this institution may refuse to state his position on a matter of such fundamental importance [i.e. membership in the Communist party] not only to this academic body but to all of American society. Dr. Davis has therefore disqualified himself for further membership in the faculty of the University of Kansas City.

Horace tried to challenge the trustee's decision in court. He filed a lawsuit claiming that KCU, certain trustees, and Senator Jenner had conspired to keep him from speaking out on political issues by removing from his professorship. He claimed his removal was wrongful and asked the court to order the university to either reinstate him or pay him for damages. The university responded by filing a motion to discuss the complaint on the technical grounds (that Horace had failed state a claim upon which relief could be granted).

Horace's case was greatly weakened by his lack of legal resources. He received help from Fyke Farmer, a lawyer based in Nashville, Tennesse. However, Farmer was not a member of the Missouri bar, so he could not practice law in the state, and Horace ended up representing himself. In filing the suit, Horace appears to have made basic legal errors. For example, in his lawsuit, he asked the court to give him a judgement for full damages, but he neglected to specify the amount of money this amounted to.

It is unclear why Horace didn't receive better legal representation. He may have found it difficult to find a lawyer willing to represent him. At the time, lawyers who represented alleged Communists sometimes faced serious professional and social repercussions. Fyke Farmer was very active in leftist politics, and he may have simply been the only lawyer Horace found willing to represent him. 

Horace's lawsuit attracted a great deal of public attention, but as a matter of law, it was easy to resolve because of the sloppy legal work Horace had done. The suit came before Charles E. Whittaker's U.S. District Court in spring 1955. In considering KCU's motion to dismiss, Judge Whittaker considered the issue of whether Horace's dismissal had been proper. He observed that Horace was tenured and thus could be dismissed for "adequate cause." Horace had been presented with formal charges that his refusals constituted cause for dismissal, and he'd been given a hearing prior to his dismissal. Judge Whittaker concluded that KCU had shown "adequate cause" and sustained KCU's motion to dismiss. 

Judge Whittaker could have justified his decision on the formal grounds that KCU had properly followed their procedure for dismissing a tenured professor. However, he chose to go further and issued a full-throated defense of anti-communism. In his judgement, he not only dismissed the lawsuit, but he praised KCU for firing Horace:

[Horace B. Davis] had a lawful right ... to refuse to answer. But he did not have a constitutional right to remain a public-school teacher. And the refusal of a teacher in a most intimate position to mould the minds of the youth of the country to answer to the responsible officials of the school whether he is a member of a found and declared conspiracy by a godless group to overthrow our government by force, constitutes "adequate cause" for the dismissal of such a teacher. The public will not stand, and they ought not to stand, for such reticence or refusals to answer by the teachers in their schools. And the University officials would have been derelict in their duties had they not asked plaintiff. . . whether he . . . ever had been a member of the Communist Party, ... and would have been derelict in their duties, and would have destroyed the University, had they not dismissed him.

Judge Charles E. Whittaker
From Wikipedia

Horace could have appealed Judge Whittaker's motion to dismiss his lawsuit, but he took no further legal actions. By fall 1955, Horace had moved to Columbia, South Carolina to work at Benedict College.

While Horace did not take further legal action, he would later take political action against his treatment by Judge Whittaker. It was this political activity that would cause major problems, not only for Horace but also for Benedict and Allen.

Marian Rubins Davis in 1920

Smith College, Class Book (1920), pg. 80.