 Smith described the case of Max Yergan, who was the first African American professor hired at the CCNY.After complaints that he expressed liberal and progressive views in his classes on Negro History and Culture, Yergan was terminated in 1936.In 1938, the U.S. House of Representatives created the House Un-American Activities Committee; one of the committee's first actions was to attempt to investigate the political views of faculty in the New York public colleges.