AAUP: Loyalty Oaths Threaten Faculty Rights
State oaths of allegiance requiring all state employees, including teachers in public colleges and universities, to affirm their support of a state’s constitution as condition of government employment are decades-old, but two recent cases on different California State University campuses underscore how the execution of the requirement can damage faculty rights.
The California oath requires persons employed by a California university (other than foreign nationals) to swear to “support and defend” the constitutions of the United States and of California, to take the obligation “without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion,” and to “faithfully discharge” the duties they are about to assume. Sometimes described as an affirmative oath, this kind of pledge can be distinguished from belief, or test, oaths, which have been struck down as unconstitutional in their requiring the individual to attest to an absence of past or present political beliefs or associations.
Affirmative oaths are not without their problems, however, as two adjunct faculty members who are Quakers learned this past year. In fall 2007, Wendy Gonaver was preparing for her first teaching assignment at Cal State Fullerton when informed that she had to sign the California oath. She sought to attach a statement to the oath explaining that signing it would be contrary to her “nonviolent beliefs as a Quaker.” Administration officials rebuffed her efforts to submit a statement of any sort, stating that there are “no exceptions allowed” to the oath within the CSU system. Gonaver did not waver in her objection to the oath, whereupon the administration told her just before the start of classes that she would not be allowed to teach. Gonaver, represented by the People for the American Way Foundation, is currently seeking reinstatement.
In March 2008, Marianne Kearney-Brown, a mathematics instructor at Cal State East Bay, lost her position for refusing to sign the oath. Her attempt to insert the word “nonviolently” before the phrase “support and defend” the constitution was rejected by the university administration. The administration, however, reappointed Kearney-Brown after the office of the state attorney general drafted a statement for her which declared that signing the oath carries no obligation or requirement for public employees to bear arms or otherwise engage in violence.
The oath resisted by Gonaver and Kearney-Brown has no doubt been signed by thousands, and no doubt has been seen as a harmless remnant of a dark period in American history. The harm done by this oath and ones similar to it in other states can be measured in the respect that insistence upon its signing led to the termination of appointments of two university teachers. Others may have quietly sought opportunities elsewhere rather than sign the oath.
Affirmative oaths are not likely to fade away any time soon, but refusal to sign the oath should not, in and of itself, be a justifiable reason for not appointing a faculty member or for terminating an appointment. The resolution of the Kearney-Brown case shows what can be done consistent with the interests of an institution of higher learning and the rights of faculty members. It is not too much to hope that public colleges and universities required to administer the oath will appoint and retain faculty members as determined by academic considerations, not dictated by legislative enactments.
(5/08)
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