Joseph Tussman

Joseph Tussman (December 4, 1914 – October 21, 2005) was an American educator and philosopher. He served as the chair of the philosophy department at the University of California, Berkeley, and was recognized as a significant educational reformer. Tussman played a crucial role in the campus controversy surrounding the loyalty oath in the 1950s. Born in Chicago and raised in Milwaukee, his parents were Shleime Tussman, a cantor, and Malka Heifetz Tussman, a notable Yiddish poet. Tussman pursued his studies under Alexander Meiklejohn at the University of Wisconsin–Madison before undertaking graduate work at Berkeley. During World War II, he served in an army-intelligence unit in southwest China. After the war, he returned to Berkeley. When California universities began requiring employees to sign a loyalty oath in the 1950s, Tussman was a leading organizer of protests. Despite the dismissal of 31 professors who refused to sign, Tussman, then untenured, eventually signed the oath due to economic pressures, describing it as the "saddest day in his life." Tussman joined the philosophy department in 1952 but left in 1955 after being denied tenure for insufficient scholarly publications. He subsequently taught at Syracuse University and Wesleyan University, completing his first book, *Obligation and the Body Politic*. He returned to Berkeley in 1963 and became chair of the philosophy department the following year. In 1964, he was a central figure in the Free Speech Movement. In 1965, Tussman established the Tussman Experimental College Program, inspired by Meiklejohn's earlier initiative. This program, designed for 150 students during their first two years, emphasized the study of significant works from periods of great societal upheaval. The program concluded after four years. Tussman continued teaching in the philosophy department until his retirement in 1983.