He does not, for example, mention the academic community's blacklist. Only a few of the professors who lost their jobs because of McCarthyism could find new ones. The others, denied academic employment for nearly 10 years, either left the United States or gave up their scholarly careers. Even more than the dismissals, the near universality of the blacklist indicates how thoroughly the academic community collaborated with the McCarthyites.
Geiger also ignores the "chilling effect" of the dismissals and blacklist. When a graduate student in physics at the University of Chicago wanted a soft drink machine for the laboratory, his fellow students refused to sign a petition for it. They did not want to jeopardize their careers by putting their names on anything. Obviously, when students at one of the most liberal schools in the nation feared repercussions if they petitioned for Cokes, America's colleges and universities had not protected political ...
