While an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Searle became the secretary of "Students against Joseph McCarthy". (McCarthy at that time served as the junior senator from Wisconsin.) In 1959 Searle began teaching at Berkeley, and he was the first tenured professor to join the 1964–65 Free Speech Movement. In 1969, while serving as chairman of the Academic Freedom Committee of the Academic Senate of the University of California, he supported the university in its dispute with students over the People's Park.