UC Berkeley In 1949, soon after the beginning of the
McCarthy era, the
Regents of the University of California adopted an
anti-communist loyalty oath to be signed by all
University of California employees. Kerr signed the oath, but fought against the firing of those who refused to sign. Kerr gained respect from his stance and was named
University of California, Berkeley's first chancellor when that position was created in 1952. As chancellor, Kerr oversaw the construction of 12 high-rise dormitories. In September 1953, then U.S. President
Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed him to the
Commission on Intergovernmental Relations.
University of California president In October 1957, Kerr was the
Board of Regents' unanimous choice to lead the entire university system.
Raymond B. Allen had been widely expected to succeed
Robert Gordon Sproul as systemwide president, but Allen's tenure as UCLA's first chancellor was marred by athletics scandals, poor campus planning, and the perception among the southern regents that he had not put up enough resistance—especially in comparison to Kerr—to Sproul's stubborn refusal to delegate anything to the campus chancellors. Therefore, when Sproul finally announced his retirement in 1957, Allen was passed over in favor of Kerr. Kerr's reforms included delegating to the chancellors the full range of powers, privileges, and responsibilities which Sproul had previously denied them. In 1959, Kerr along with Chancellor
Glenn T. Seaborg helped found the Berkeley
Space Sciences Laboratory.
Student protests On March 22, 1961, at the invitation of
SLATE,
Frank Wilkinson gave a speech at the Berkeley campus, and in response to the ensuing controversy, Kerr defended the importance of freedom of speech: "The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas." Kerr was criticized both by students, for not agreeing to their demands, and by conservative UC Regent
Edwin Pauley and others, for responding too leniently to the student unrest.
Blacklisting In late 1964, President
Lyndon Johnson picked Kerr to become secretary of
Health, Education and Welfare. He later withdrew the nomination after the FBI background check on Kerr included damaging information the agency knew to be false. Almost 40 years later, in 2002, the
FBI released documents used to blacklist Kerr as part of a government campaign to suppress subversive viewpoints at the university. This information had been classified by the FBI and was released only after a fifteen-year legal battle that the FBI repeatedly appealed up to the Supreme Court, but agreed to settle before the Supreme Court decided on hearing the matter.
Edwin Pauley approached
John McCone, a Berkeley alum and associate, at the
CIA for assistance. McCone in turn met with
FBI director
J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover agreed to supply Pauley with confidential FBI information on "ultra-liberal" regents, faculty members, and students, and to assist in removing Kerr. Pauley received dozens of briefings from the FBI to this end. The FBI assisted Pauley and
Ronald Reagan in painting Kerr as a dangerous "liberal". File:McCone-Hoover, UC Berkeley 1965.gif|CIA's McCone, at Pauley's request, asks Hoover to target anti-war protests at UC Berkeley. File:Reagan-Hoover_UCB_memo1.gif|1969 FBI memo re: Ronald Reagan's purge of UC Berkeley, p. 1 File:Reagan-Hoover_UCB_memo2.gif|1969 FBI memo re: Ronald Reagan's purge of UC Berkeley, p. 2 File:Reagan-Hoover_UCB_memo3.gif|1969 FBI memo re: Ronald Reagan's purge of UC Berkeley, p. 3
Dismissal During his successful campaign in the
1966 California gubernatorial election, Reagan repeatedly promised to "clean up the mess at Berkeley." In 1987,
Lyn Nofziger revealed to Kerr that Reagan actually did not know much about UC at the beginning of his campaign, but had tacked right in order to prevail in the Republican primary against
George Christopher, and started focusing on the "student revolt at Berkeley" after a poll determined that it was a priority of Republican voters. Kerr knew what was coming and did not actively fight it in the sense of actively lobbying individual regents. At the dedication ceremony Kerr stated that he had left the presidency of the university just as he had entered it: "fired with enthusiasm".
Personal life Kerr was married to
Catherine "Kay" Spaulding on Christmas Day, 1934. Kay, along with friends, founded the Save San Francisco Bay Association in 1961, which became
Save the Bay. The couple had three children; Clark E., Jr., Alexander, and Caroline Gage. Kerr died on December 1, 2003, in
El Cerrito, California, following complications from a fall. ==Legacy and honors==