Are Professors Worth Saving? American Universities' Life-and-Death Decisions on Refugees from Nazi Europe

In the 1930s and early 1940s, American universities grappled with the question of whether they should help European scholars immigrate to the United States. Based on her original archival research, Prof. Leff will explore how considerations such as budgetary concerns, competition for jobs, and attitudes toward ethnic minorities influenced the academic community's response to the crisis of refugees fleeing the Nazis.