York expelled 50 teachers, including Morris U. Schappes. Dodd spent 1940–1941 defending teachers or finding them new jobs. She also led the TU into new affiliation with United Public Workers as Local 555 UPW. In 1942, she found herself deep in political infighting between communists and socialists over control the American Labor Party. In 1944, she oversaw the opening of the Jefferson School of Social Science, successor to the New York Workers School, orchestrated by Earl Browder and Alexander Trachtenberg. She declined an offer to run the California Labor School. During her time with the TU, Dodd worked closely with the Party, but she was not an open member. As she testified before HUAC in 1953, "the Communist Pary was emphatic that professional people engaged in public service who had public jobs were not to be exposed and were not card-carrying members. Rather, she served in the faction that moved the TU "in the direction of the Communist Party." By 1943, Dodd's feelings toward the Communist Party had changed: During the war period I saw how opportunism and selfishness engulfed many [Party] comrades. They wore expensive clothes, lived in fine apartments, took long vacations at places provided by men of wealth.... There were the trade union Communists who rubbed elbows with underworld characters at communist-financed night clubs, and labor lawyers who were given patronage by the Party...and now were well established and comfortable. In March 1943, Gil Green convinced Dodd to become an open Communist Party leader. Dodd succeeded Si Gerson (who was enlisting in the Army) as Communist legislative representative for the New York district, retaining an honorary TU position. At Party headquarters, she attended Politburo meetings with Gil Green, Earl Browder, William Z. Foster, Robert Minor, Jim Ford, Jack Stachel, John Williamson, and Elizabeth Gurly Flynn. Dodd, Philip Jones, and Allen Goodwin set up a law office at 25 West 43rd Street for political outreach beyond the Party, including with the National Maritime Union. In 1944, Dodd served on the National Committee of the Communist Party, on the secretariat of the New York State Communist Party along with Si Gerson and Israel Amter, and the National Committee of the "Communist Political Association." She later wrote: By January 1944 I was firmly established at Party headquarters on Twelfth Street. There I organized the legislative program of the Party; but, more important still, I supervised the legislative work of the