A Virginia lawyer, Lewis J. Powell, writes a confidential memo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, exhorting big business to purge leftists from university teaching positions.
Published
1971: A Virginia lawyer, Lewis J. Powell, writes a confidential memo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, exhorting big business to purge leftists from university teaching positions. President Nixon later appoints Powell to the U.S. Supreme Court.
THE TIMELINE
How we got Here:
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2025
Columbia University complies with the Trump administration’s demands to put the School of Middle Eastern Studies under receivership.
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2005
In a keynote speech at Harvard University President Lawrence Summers asserts that innate gender differences largely explained women’s underrepresentation in science fields.
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1971
A Virginia lawyer, Lewis J. Powell, writes a confidential memo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, exhorting big business to purge leftists from university teaching positions.
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1970
A second attempt by the University of California’s Board of Regents to fire Angela Davis from her UCLA teaching job fails.
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1968
Black Student Union leads protests at San Francisco State University that produce the College of Ethnic Studies.
