Charles Muscatine dies at 89; UC Berkeley Chaucer expert fought Red Scare loyalty oath
Muscatine was among 31 professors who were fired in the summer of 1950 after refusing to sign the loyalty oath. In 1952, the state high court ordered them reinstated.
 Charles Muscatine was fired in 1950 from UC Berkeley for refusing to sign a loyalty oath. The world-renowned Chaucer scholar was a longtime advocate for higher education reform. |
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Charles Muscatine, a world-renowned Chaucer scholar and a longtime advocate for higher education reform who was fired as a young assistant professor of English at UC Berkeley when he refused to sign a loyalty oath during the Red Scare of the 1950s, has died. He was 89.
Muscatine died of an infection March 12 at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland, said his daughter, Lissa Muscatine.
"Chuck Muscatine was a vital figure in the political leadership of the Berkeley faculty all the way from the loyalty oath controversy through the Free Speech Movement," said David A. Hollinger, a professor of history at UC Berkeley.
"He also was a leader in the reform and enrichment of undergraduate education at Berkeley," Hollinger said. "He was the chief author of the [1966] 'Muscatine Report,' which set the frame for thinking about undergraduate education at Berkeley for the last several decades."
A Yale-educated World War II Navy veteran who participated in the D-day landing on Omaha Beach,
Muscatine died of an infection March 12 at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland, said his daughter, Lissa Muscatine.
"Chuck Muscatine was a vital figure in the political leadership of the Berkeley faculty all the way from the loyalty oath controversy through the Free Speech Movement," said David A. Hollinger, a professor of history at UC Berkeley.
"He also was a leader in the reform and enrichment of undergraduate education at Berkeley," Hollinger said. "He was the chief author of the [1966] 'Muscatine Report,' which set the frame for thinking about undergraduate education at Berkeley for the last several decades."
A Yale-educated World War II Navy veteran who participated in the D-day landing on Omaha Beach,
