Vera Shlakman, an influential economics professor who was fired by Queens College after she refused to tell Senate investigators whether she had ever been a card-carrying Communist — a punishment that brought an apology three decades later — died on Nov. 5 at her home in Manhattan. She was 108.

Her death, which was not widely reported at the time, was confirmed by her friend Ellen J. Holahan.

Dr. Shlakman was the last survivor among more than a dozen teachers at New York City’s public colleges who were ousted by the Board of Higher Education during the early stages of the Red Scare wrought by Senators Pat McCarran and Joseph R. McCarthy.

A 42-year-old assistant professor when she was fired in 1952, Dr. Shlakman neither taught economics again nor wrote a sequel to her groundbreaking 1935 book on female factory workers.

Thirty years later, 10 of the fired professors, including Dr. Shlakman, were indemnified with pension settlements after receiving an apology from college officials.