THE ASSAULT ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM
 

caters' groups, such as the National Education Association, the
most powerfifl school organization in the United States; the Asso¬
ciation of American Universities, composed of university ad¬
ministiators; and the American Federation of Teachers, AFL,
representing teachers from school to university level. Each of
these bodies has voted that Communists Have no place in the
educational system of the United States.

Yet in aU the hullabaloo over Communists, we cannot afford to
forget that teachers dissenting from any form of orthodoxy stand
in danger. Whfle freedom of teaching in the natural sciences has
made considerable progress and laws against the teaching of evo¬
lution have become a dead letter since the famous trial of science
iostructor John T. Scopes in Tennessee in 1925,° the situation as
regards teaching in the social sciences, phflosophy and religion is
less healthy.

For example, in 1955 Wfllard J. Graff, Superintendent of PubHc
Schools in Springfield, Missouri, took the position that tiiere was
no place for agnostics or atheists in the school system when he
ousted Leslie Hill as a teacher of science in Pipkin Junior High
School. A pupfl in science class had asked Mr. Hfll if he beheved
in God. Hfll said, "No," and told his students that he would dis¬
cuss the matter informally after class with any who wished to
stay. A number of them did remain, and HiU frankly answered
their questions.

When Superintendent Graff asked Hill to resign, HiU refused
and reminded him, "We have freedom of religious beHefs in this
countiy." ^*^ Hill also said that he had always taught his students
the scientffie attitude, counseling them: "Think for yourselves
instead of beheving what I teU you or other teachers teU you.
Everyone should weigh the evidence for himseff," ^^^ Nonetheless
Mr. Graff dismissed Leslie Hill who, though eligible under the
Constitution for any elective office in American pohtical Hfe, sud¬
denly became ineligible to teach in a high school,

" This tiial, in which attorneys Wiffiam Jennings Bryan and Clarence
Darrow were the leading protagonists, has been recently dramatized in
a first-rate Broadway play entitled. Inherit the Wind.