Harry Gideonse, from 1939 to 1966, Brooklyn College ranked high nationally in number of alumni with doctorate degrees. As academics fled Nazi Germany, nearly a third of refugee historians who were female would at some point work at Brooklyn College. In 1944, sociologist Marion Vera Cuthbert became the first permanent black faculty member appointed at any of the New York municipal colleges. And in 1956, with John Hope Franklin joining, Brooklyn College became the first "white" college to hire on a permanent basis a historian who was black. In 1959, still tuition-free, about 8,000 undergraduates were enrolled. In 1962, the college joined six other colleges to form the City University of New York, creating the world's second-largest university. In 1983, Brooklyn College named its library the Harry D. Gideonse Library. Nevertheless, Gideonse remains a controversial figure in the college's history; as one account noted, he is "either lauded as a hero and great educator in hagiographic accounts . . . or decried by faculty and alumni as an autocrat who stifled academic freedom and students' rights." In addition to his curricular and student life reforms, Gideonse was known for his decades-long campaign to ferret out Communists among the college community and his testimony before congressional and state investigating committees during the Second Red Scare. On the other hand, perhaps retaining the memory of the time when, as a University of Chicago professor, he was unjustly accused of being a Communist and advocating "free love," Gideonse also attacked those who, without evidence, charged faculty, staff and students with being subversives and defended faculty free speech rights against outside critics. The college's third president, Francis Kilcoyne, served from 1966 to 1967. The fourth president, Harold Syrett, resigned due to ill health in February 1969, when George A. Peck was named acting president. John Kneller, Brooklyn College's fifth president, served from 1969 until 1979. These presidents served during what were perhaps the most tumultuous years for Brooklyn College. During the Vietnam War, as they did on other U.S. campuses, student protests rocked Brooklyn College. President Gideonse, in a 1965 television interview, blamed demonstrations on Communists who were "duping the innocents" into demanding more freedom on campus, leading the New York Civil Liberties Union to criticize Gideonse for "his efforts to smear student groups at the college with the Communist label." Also in 1965, student protests forced the Gideonse administration to rescind new, stricter