Marcia R. Harrison papers

The Papers of Marcia R. Harrison relate mainly to two distinct periods of her life. The first is her termination from the U.S. State Department in 1951, when she was determined a security risk by the Loyalty Security Board, and her unsuccessful appeal of this decision. The second is her 1983 termination from the Department of Health and Human Services and her subsequent unsuccessful lawsuit accusing the Department of age discrimination.

Marcia Harrison was investigated by various branches of the Federal government numerous times before her termination in 1951, mainly because of her involvement in the 1930’s in organizations that had since been identified as subversive. These organizations include the American Student Union, the Young Communist League, and the Washington Bookshop Association. Though Harrison was cleared in all prior investigations, in 1951 an unidentified informant alleged that Harrison had been active in the Library of Congress branch of the Communist Party when she was employed there as a cataloger, and this unsubstantiated and anonymous accusation led to the Loyalty and Security Board’s determination that Harrison posed a security risk as a Federal employee. The first three boxes of this collection contain materials pertaining to Harrison’s termination, her Loyalty and Security Board hearing, her subsequent appeal, previous investigations of her activities, and her later efforts to obtain eligibility for Federal employment outside of the State Department. In addition to materials generated and received by Harrison and her lawyer before and up to 1952 such as correspondence, file memoranda, and legal documents such as briefs and affidavits, Harrison later received an extensive collection of government documents related to her case that were declassified after amendments to the Freedom of Information Act were made in 1975. This set of investigation files from the FBI, the State Department, the CIA, and the Civil Service Commission are a useful resource for scholars studying Federal investigations of suspected communists during the 1940’s and 1950’s.

In 1983 Harrison was terminated from her position as an attorney at the Department of Health and Human Services, reportedly for her unsatisfactory work performance. Harrison believed that she was fired because she refused to retire, and sued the Department for age discrimination. The rest of this collection relates to Harrison’s unsuccessful age discrimination case. The bulk of this material consists of copies of Harrison’s work product from the years 1979-1983, making this collection useful not only to those interested in age discrimination cases, but also to those interested in the work of the Health and Human Services Department during those years.