In 1954, Mark Nickerson was an Associate Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Michigan, with tenure. He was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities committee and chose to invoke the Fifth Amendment in response to the Committee's questions. He was immediately suspended by the University as a result. Professor Nickerson's reinstatement was supported by the Faculty Senate but not by his department or by the Medical School. He was subsequently dismissed from the University despite his tenured appointment.
Professor Nickerson passed away in 1998.
Additional information
- Academic Freedom Lecture, SACUA, University of Michigan.
- http://www.umich.edu/~aflf/history.html
In 1954 the University of Michigan suspended and then terminated Professors H. Chandler Davis and Mark Nickerson, a tenured faculty member, and suspended but then reinstated Professor Clement Markert for their refusal to give testimony during a visit to Michigan of a group from the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities. National AAUP censured the University in 1957 and, after a new Regents' Bylaw, 5.09, was adopted, removed censure in 1958. In 1988 Wilbert J. McKeachie, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, published an article, Reminiscences of the 1950's, in the University of Michigan AAUP Chapter Newsletter that reviewed in detail the treatment of Davis, Markert and Nickerson at the University of Michigan during the 1950's.
