William A. Schaper Case papers

In September 1917, Dr. William A. Schaper was dismissed from the University faculty for alleged disloyalty during the anti-German scare of World War I; he came out publicly against the United States involvement in the war. He had been a distinguished member of the faculty for 16 years and chairman of the Department of Political Science since 1915. In 1938, the Board of Regents of the University of Minnesota rescinded the 1917 dismissal action, reinstated Dr. Schaper as Professor Emeritus, and paid the sum of $5,000 in lieu of salary for the academic year 1917-1918. Dr. Schaper and Mrs. Schaper died within a week of each other late in 1955. Their estate was left to the Universities of Oklahoma and Minnesota. The University of Minnesota received $10,000 to be used for scholarships in Political Science from the Schaper estate.

In 1955, Dr. William Anderson began to collect information on what has come to be called the “Schaper Case" for deposit in the University of Minnesota Archives. Dr. Anderson, a former student and colleague of Dr. Schaper and a distinguished member of the faculty for 41 years, recognized the importance of this case not only to the history of the University of Minnesota but also to the history of the development of academic freedom in the United States.