Oral history interview with Daniel H. Pollitt, November 28, 1990

About this book

This is the second interview in a nine-part series of interviews with civil liberties lawyer Daniel H. Pollitt. In this interview, Pollitt focuses on his decision to accept a position at the University of North Carolina School of Law in 1957. Pollitt had previously refused to sign a loyalty oath at the University of Arkansas and sought employment at a university that would be more receptive to his interests in issues of civil liberty. Pollitt begins by describing his interview at UNC, his warm reception there, and his initial perceptions of the faculty. In describing the establishment of the law school at UNC in 1920, Pollitt notes that most of the faculty had been hired in the 1920s. In addition to discussing his decision to accept the position, Pollitt describes in detail faculty members such as Maurice Taylor Van Hecke (who was serving as the dean in the mid-1950s), Robert Wettach, Freddy McCall, Herb Bauer, William Aycock, Henry Brandis, and John Dalzell. In describing these professors, Pollitt sheds insight on the history of the UNC School of Law from the 1920s through the 1950s, ties between the law school and the broader community, and the relationship between the UNC School of Law and the African American law school at North Carolina Central University.