TSHA Home Publications Education Events Southwestern Historical Quarterly The Handbook of Texas Online About Us News Site Search Contact Us Giving Opportunities Links FAQ Join the TSHA
skip to content
TSHA Online Home
Texas Day by Day

October 12, 1944


UT president lambastes Board of Regents at faculty meeting

On this day in 1944, during one of the most notorious quarrels over academic freedom in Texas history, University of Texas president Homer Rainey made a dramatic public statement of grievances against the UT Board of Regents before a general faculty meeting. Some regents had loudly sought the dismissal of pro-New Deal and pro-union-labor faculty and the censorship of leftist authors. The regents seized on Rainey's public statement as an opportunity to fire him on November 1. Regent Marguerite Fairchild cast the sole dissenting vote. The students went on strike, and 8,000 marched in mute mourning from the campus to the Capitol and the Governor's Mansion.

Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
RAINEY, HOMER PRICE
BULLINGTON, ORVILLE
FAIRCHILD, MARGUERITE GIBSON SHEARER
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
First Catholic Mass in Texas celebrated (1680)
Future publisher joins Galveston News as office boy (1874)


Copyright © Texas State Historical Association    Published by the Texas State Historical Association and distributed
in partnership with Holt, Rinehart and Winston, a Harcourt Education Company
Terms of Use   Comment/Contact   Policy Agreement   Updated: May 15, 08