Garfield Bromley Oxnam

Garfield Bromley Oxnam (August 14, 1891 – March 12, 1963) was a social reformer and American Bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1936.

Under the tutelage of Progressive teachers Emory S. Bogardus, Rockwell D. Hunt, and James Main Dixon, Oxnam was encouraged to apply his knowledge of social issues in real life settings in Los Angeles.

To Oxnam, the concept of Americanization went far beyond the Better America Foundation's narrow patriotic rhetoric, it embodied the education for citizenship based on social justice and workers' rights.

Oxnam was even accused of instigating a plot to "sovietize the public schools" in response to his declaration that teachers' opinions should be involved when they were making policy decisions.

He ultimately lost the election as a result of slanderous accusations by the Los Angeles Times and the Better America Foundation,[2] which were later used as evidence by the House Un-American Activities Committee.

He also opposed the use of the atomic bomb by saying “There is something morally wrong with a weapon who destroys humanity.”[5] He was accused of being a communist by Donald L. Jackson and appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee on July 21, 1953.

The founding of the SIS was part of a vision held by Oxnam to create an academic institution "pledged to the study, proclamation and practice of the principles of freedom and the maintenance of civil, economic, and religious liberty by training competent and consecrated men and women for the international service of the state, the community and the church."