In 1941, President Alvin Johnson facilitated the establishment of the École Libre des Hautes Études at the New School. The new institute brought together a disparate group of French and Belgian scholars fleeing the war in Europe. Legally a part of the New School, the École Libre retained an autonomous administration and educational structure, with largely independent finances. Between 1942 and 1946, the École Libre offered a wide range of courses, primarily in French, in the social sciences and humanities. While certain École Libre faculty worked adamantly to maintain a non-political and purely scholarly stance for the school, others, passionate supporters of the Free France movement led by Charles de Gaulle, held that the school bore an intrinsic relationship to the movement. This widening rift eventually contributed to the severance, in June 1947, of the institute from the New School. Included here are promotional materials, including transcripts of speeches, press releases, and course announcements, spanning the institute's association with the New School, as well as documentation from later commemorative events. Also includes correspondence and documents describing the evolving administrative relationship between the New School and the École Libre. See Speeches series within this collection for related materials. Between 1943 and 1945 the École Libre produced a journal in French, Renaissance, available online through the Hathi Trust. For background on the institute, see Zolberg, Aristide R., "The École Libre at The New School, 1941-1946," Social Research, 65:4 (1998) p. 921.