On April 11, 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower put into effect Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1953, creating a new cabinet level department within the federal government. The new Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) was a consolidation of organizations dealing with national social concerns. Some of the organizations dated back to 1785 when the Congress of the Confederation first set aside public lands for schools. This paper concerns the creation and growth of the department of Health, Education and Welfare, including it's various educational programs, educational research programs, aid to higher education, federally impacted areas, and other HEW programs which affect education.

When the national Democratic Party began to transform to progressive era politics because of the New Deal, conservative reactionaries turned against the social welfare programs and used red scare tactics to discredit liberal and progressive New Deal Democrat professors in higher education. This process continued during the Second World War, when the conservatives in Texas lumped fascism and communism in order to anchor support and fire and threaten professors and administrators for advocating or teaching “subversive doctrine.” In 1948 Texas joined other southern states and followed the Dixiecrat movement designed to return the Democratic Party to its original pro-business and segregationist philosophy. Conservatives who wanted to bolster their Cold Warrior status in Texas also played upon the fears of spreading communism during the Cold War, and passed several repressive laws intended to silence unruly students and entrap professors by claiming they advocated communist doctrine. The fight culminated during the Civil Rights movement, when conservatives in the state attributed subversive or communist behavior to civil rights organizations, and targeted higher education to protect segregated universities. In order to return the national Democratic Party to the pro-business, segregationist philosophy established at the early twentieth century, conservatives used redbaiting tactics to thwart the progressivism in the state’s higher education facilities.