The effects of McCarthyism on U.S. colleges are considered, with a focus on the response of administrators and faculty members to the anti-Communist furor of the 1940s and 1950s. Perspectives on McCarthyism as a political process are offered, along with an explanation of how it gained so much power. McCarthyism is seen as having two stages: the objectionable groups and individuals were identified; then, they were punished, usually by being fired. It is argued that U.S. colleges would not have purged their left-wing faculty members during the McCarthy era without pressures from outside. Chapters cover: the development of academic freedom, 1886-1918; academic Communists in the 1930s and 1940s; political repression of academic radicals, 1932-1942; the exclusion of Communists from academic life after World War II; higher education's early response to congressional investigations and right-wing attacks; congressional committees, unfriendly witnesses, and the academic community; investigating committees and academic witnesses in the spring of 1953; academic committee and unfriendly witnesses; the quieter dismissals of left-wing teachers; the academic blacklist in operation; coping with the academic blacklist; and the failure of the academic profession to defend its members against the anti-Communist purges. (SW)