In the Spirit of H. Chandler Davis: New Book Honors Principled Dissent
A new book from Disobedience Press, an imprint of Michigan Publishing run by Stamps Professors Rebekah Modrak and Nick Tobier, honors a University of Michigan faculty member who stood for resistance in the McCarthy era.
The essays collected in In the Spirit of H. Chandler Davis: Activism and the Struggle for Academic Freedom honor the life and legacy of H. Chandler Davis (1926 – 2022), who, in 1954 as a young University of Michigan faculty member, became a symbol of principled dissent when he was dismissed for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Unlike many who invoked the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination, Davis based his refusal solely on the First Amendment guarantee of free speech — staking his livelihood and liberty on the principle that no government body had the right to police ideas. Convicted of contempt of Congress, he served six months in prison before rebuilding his career in Canada, where he became a brilliant mathematician, editor, and advocate for justice, equality, and peace.
Edited by Michael Atzmon, Gary D. Krenz, John Cheney-Lippold, and Melanie S. Tanielian, In the Spirit of H. Chandler Davis brings together contributors from a wide range of backgrounds, who situate Davis’s legacy within today’s escalating threats to free inquiry. Modrak, who served as Managing Editor for the book, notes, “At this moment when U.S. higher education is faced with the greatest threat to intellectual life in its history, the book’s contributors argue against the suppression of protest, the policed campus, the self-silencing of ‘institutional neutrality,’ and other enemies of academic freedom and urge readers to defend institutional autonomy and the right to free expression.”
The book features essays by Michael Bérubé, Juan Cole, Stefan Hanß, Marjorie Heins, Dima Khalidi, Gene Nichol, Henry Reichman, Ellen Schrecker, Joan Scott, Catharine R. Stimpson, Alan Wald, and Silke-Maria Weineck, as well as posthumously published writings by Chandler Davis and by his wife, the eminent historian Natalie Zemon Davis.
In a review of In the Spirit of H. Chandler Davis, Isaac Kamola, author of Manufacturing Backlash, observed “The arch of the moral university does not bend towards justice of its own accord. It does so because of those who stand and fight the authoritarians and the fascists. Today, when so many are cowering, or worse, capitulating, it becomes important to reflect on those like H. Chandler Davis who continued to demand justice even during the darkest of times.”
In the Spirit of H. Chandler Davis: Activism and the Struggle for Academic Freedom was published on January 31, 2026, and is available now from Michigan Publishing and bookstores everywhere.