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Friday, May 2, 2024
By Dr. Steven Taylor

Via the LAT: Teacher fired for refusing to sign loyalty oath

She lost the job because she did not sign a loyalty oath swearing to “defend” the U.S. and California constitutions “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

The loyalty oath was added to the state Constitution by voters in 1952 to root out communists in public jobs. Now, 16 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, its main effect is to weed out religious believers, particularly Quakers and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

As a Quaker from Pennsylvania and a lifelong pacifist, Gonaver objected to the California oath as an infringement of her rights of free speech and religious freedom. She offered to sign the pledge if she could attach a brief statement expressing her views, a practice allowed by other state institutions. But Cal State Fullerton rejected her statement and insisted that she sign the oath if she wanted the job.

[...]

In February, another Cal State instructor, Quaker math teacher Marianne Kearney-Brown, was fired because she inserted the word “nonviolently” when she signed the oath. She was quickly rehired after her case attracted media attention.

(There are some additional examples in the piece.)

Good thing that the State of California, and Cal State Fullerton in particular, is protecting American college students from Quakers and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

I’ll be honest: I am not sure how an instructor’s willingness to swear loyalty to the constitution is relevant to their ability to teach. Specifically: what about visiting foreign faculty or resident aliens? Does California require that Canadian with the green card to sign such an oath? I guess they must.

And really, there is something untoward about loyalty oaths, except in very limited circumstances (such as for elected officials or for members of the military). Certainly a loyalty oath designed to make sure that common citizens hold the “correct” ideas is plain creepy and decidedly un-American.

An irony of such oaths is that if someone really is a traitor who is seeking to infiltrate American higher ed so as to corrupt the minds of our youth, one suspects that they wouldn’t have any trouble lying and signing the piece the of paper. As such, these kinds of things are worthless as a defense against such a threat.

Perhaps the grandest irony of all is that making the signing of the oath a pro forma exercise for all employees in the state, the state constitutional provision cheapens the idea of loyalty to the values of the US Constitution as it makes such a oath mean absolutely nothing but just something one “has to do” to get a job. What’s the value of such an oath?

Update: James Joyner weighs in:

I swore to protect the Constitution from its enemies three times — upon matriculating as a cadet, upon enlisting in the Army Reserve, and upon commissioning — and actually deployed to a combat zone pursuant to that oath. Several times in the ensuing years, I also signed contracts to teach at various colleges and universities. None of them asked to to sign any oaths and I’d have laughed at them if they had.

So, too, do John Cole and Fontana Labs, who amusingly notes:

Enemies foreign and domestic should be warned that I will throw heavy anthologies at them if they endanger my beloved constitution.

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Filed under: Academia, US Politics | |

3 Comments »

  • el
  • pt
    1. What’s the value of such an oath?
      I think the answer is not mysterious. The “value” of these oaths is pretty straightforward–simply to quell domestic political dissent and intimidate government critics.

      You can trace these things back (at least) to the propaganda campaigns against pacifists during the first World War. Of course the new incarnation of loyalty oaths are the ongoing efforts to brandish government critics as “anti-troops” and “pro-terrorist.”

      They are part of a fascist tendency that seems to be a persistent sub-text of American political discourse.

      As you so rightly point out, loyalty oaths are inherently irrational, so their deployment must be analyzed by considering their un-articulated affects.

      Comment by Ratoe — Friday, May 2, 2024 @ 10:42 am

    2. You are, of course, correct–the purpose is to quell dissent and to engage crude nationalism.

      I wrote the post mostly aimed at those who might, at least at first blush, not see the big deal.

      Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Friday, May 2, 2024 @ 11:45 am

    3. I think it’s important to take this thing and put it in its historical context - obviously it is out of place in the 21st century and should be done away with; but as Dr. Taylor mentioned, it dates to the early cold war, when there was genuine fear - and reason to be fearful - of Soviet agents. They did lead successful insurrections in more than one or two places globally, and in terms of raw numbers, the Soviet Union was one of the #1 mass-murdering systems in recorded history. Maybe #1, depending on who is doing the counting. There was reason to be afraid - and it amazes me how fast we are forgetting that. I trained with soldiers from Latvia and Lithuania after they became independent - their stories haunt me.

      I was a military officer, of course for me such an oath still serves a purpose, as it separates my duty rather clearly from personality and assigns it to the Constitution. The obvious reason for swearing fealty to the paper and not the person is to discourage us officers from getting together and having a coup, or otherwise interfering with the process.

      I see no such reason for a teacher - although the idea of teachers who are not loyal to the US teaching our students is quite distasteful to me - I think that it should be an issue to be settled through the educational system (the local boards of education, college boards, etc.)

      Comment by Captain D — Sunday, May 4, 2024 @ 10:04 pm

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