Homer Rainey

Homer Price Rainey (January 19, 1896 – December 19, 1985) was an American college president and professor. He was born in Eliasville in Young County, Texas, and served as the president of the University of Texas at Austin from 1939 to 1944.

Rainey also served as president of Franklin College (1927-1931), Bucknell University (1931-1935), and Stephens College (1947-1956).

The University of Texas Board of Regents fired Rainey in 1944 after a lengthy battle over academic freedom. The regents wanted alleged Communists within the economics department dismissed. Historian Eugene C. Barker, a leading figure at UT at the time, supported the regents against Rainey.

Rainey was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Texas in 1946, having lost the Democratic nomination to Beauford Jester of Corsicana, the seat of Navarro County. Rainey finished second in the first primary with a quarter of the vote, and was defeated in the runoff by a 2-1 margin.

After his crushing defeat in the 1946 election, Rainey left Texas, initially to become president of Stephens College in Missouri. Later he was a professor of education at the University of Colorado and wrote a memoir about his experience as president of UT-Austin.

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