A new exhibition in the law library’s Main Reading Room examines events at Berkeley Law amid the Cold War clash between politics and academic freedom. During the 1949-50 academic year, for example, all university faculty members had to sign a written loyalty oath swearing that they were not members of, nor sympathetic to, the Communist Party. Any faculty member who refused to sign this oath would be summarily fired—regardless of tenure status. A few years later, government agencies regularly checked in with Berkeley Law professors to see if their students expressed “unacceptable” political views in classroom discussions or written class assignments. More information on the exhibit is available here.