Nov. 20, 1953: 32 Philadelphia Teachers Suspended During Red Scare

Starting on Friday, November 20, 1953, the School District of Philadelphia suspended 32 teachers for their alleged connections to the Communist Party. Over the next few months, the school board voted to terminate these accused teachers. This was at the height of McCarthyism and the Red Scare, when anti-communist rhetoric was at its peak and thousands of people across the country lost their jobs following frivilous accusations and harmful loyalty oaths.

HUAC questioned 16 teachers during its appearance in Philadelphia and another 17 local teachers at a follow-up hearing in Washington, D.C. Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer/WHYY

These suspensions were precipitated by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), which came to Philadelphia in November and questioned 16 local school teachers. Seventeen more teachers were called to testify in the coming months.

In “Red Tape: The Untold Stories of Philadelphia’s 1950s Teacher Purge”, Avi Wolfman-Arent writes:

All of the Philadelphia teachers called before the committee had signed a mandatory Loyalty Oath in 1952 swearing they were not, currently, members of the Communist Party. There was no proof any had violated the oath.

Despite the FBI’s surveillance, there also wasn’t any proof that Philadelphia teachers had preached Communist doctrine in the classroom.

For three days in 1953, the House Un-American Activities Committee grilled accused Communists at a federal courthouse in Philadelphia. Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer/WHYY

Herman Beilan, one of the terminated teachers, sued the school district for violations of his First Amendment rights, a suit which eventually made its way to the Supreme Court. Wolfman-Arent notes, “In June of that year, the high court ruled 5-4 in favor of the School District of Philadelphia. The majority decision sidestepped the central issue of academic freedom and First Amendment rights.”

Learn more in the article “Red Tape: The Untold Stories of Philadelphia’s 1950s Teacher Purge” by Avi Wolfman-Arent.