Teacher fired for refusing to sign loyalty oath

Source: LA Times

When Wendy Gonaver was offered a job teaching American studies at Cal State Fullerton this academic year, she was pleased to be headed back to the classroom to talk about one of her favorite themes: protecting constitutional freedoms.

But the day before class was scheduled to begin, her appointment as a lecturer abruptly ended over just the kind of issue that might have figured in her course. 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.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-oath2-2008may02,0,1701776.story

:wow: I cannot believe that people in the United States are still required to take loyalty oaths! :wtf:

Kucinich refused to sign it.

of course Texas is an odd critter anyway (no offense to Texas dwellers on DU)....

you to be Obama's Secretary of State.

I also hereby nominate your phrase "odd critter" for Understatement of the Year award.

Kudos!

if he didn't sign it. We don't need flakes wanting to be on the Democratic ballot without being a Democrat. That goes for Obama and his supporters if. and more precisely when, they flake when Hillary is nominated.

slime your way back over to Free Republic, moron?

Kucinich even let people speculate about a Ron Paul/Kucinich ticket. In my book that's a flake. what about your book?

Putting the teacher aside and focusing on elected officials:

One of the things that pisses people off about * is his castration of the constitution and the rights within. Why is asking someone running for president to say *yes I want to protect and defend the constitution* so wrong?

His refusal to sign was for a Party loyalty oath.

It wasn't swearing to uphold and defend the Constitution which he is all for.

Thanks for clarifying..

But if you want a job teaching for the state they might want to know you have their best interest at heart. I think the fact they would not let her sign with an addendum is kind of lame but I dont have a problem with government employees having to take an oath..

n/t

I duly signed mine with the same level of sincerity as when I promised the priest that I would raise my children Catholic

but she should have just signed the stupid thing even if she completely didn't agree with it.
It's not like it was asking her to believe in a particular gawd or vote for a particular candidate, and 'defend' is sufficiently vague that they would have a really hard time making a 'violation' of it stick.
I had to sign one of these things for UC years ago.
To me it's only marginally different than having to be polite to a boss that I loathe.

I know I know... we shouldn't have to do things like that, and I agree.

But we also shouldn't insist on being morally upstanding and honest when it comes to dealing with a government that lies through its teeth.

Small Christian college, they needed a job, and they signed the faith statement, even when they didn't believe in it. They never went against the college or the parent church, but they did do their darndest to teach us to think critically, which was pretty subversive there.

I think she did a good thing in standing up for her rights, but I wouldn't have thought less of her for signing it, either.

What you or anyone else thinks of her isn't important, it's what she thinks of herself that counts.

Supposedly, in order for me to be a good Orthodox Christian, I should actually be a nun doing all nine prayers every day and such. Since I'm a married woman and a mom, I can't and so compromise on how much I can pray.

She needed the job, the paper's no longer enforced, and now because of the piece of paper, she's out of a job. I think she should sue to get the law changed, definitely, and work to get a better job (which is probably what she's doing).

She did stand up for her rights but she is not entitled a state job for her trouble...

It is about the state denying someone a job because of a loyalty oath.

It smells of McCarthyism.

This is a job paid by the state. She will be working for the state that she refuses to defend... I kinda see that as something of a disqualifier..

which used to be important in this country.

Sadly, all too few people are brave enough to stand up for principals.

HUAC is a good example of that rarity.

She gets my vote.

...just disappointed. In prior years, she had been allowed to attach a statement to her form, but this year they wouldn't accept this.

- But in the end, all we really have as human beings is our integrity, our beliefs and our self-respect. And apparently they wanted that too.

K&R!!!

It doesn't offend me, but it does sadden me that we have become so complacent...

because its talking about defending the constitution *not* the current government. Im kinda of with you on this but they should let pacifist say as much when they sign, after all there are non violent ways to defend our freedoms..

in the first place. In her view, the Constitution protects her right to refuse loyalty oaths such as this.

The oath is pretty clearly to the constitution not the people and I agree that she should not have to take an oath... of course she is not entitled to work for a government with a controlling charter that she feels is not worth protecting

There's a big difference.

a spine? no more loyalty oaths, that's what.

you are just as responsible for this person losing their job because you couldn't be bothered to be 'morally upstanding and honest'

have you ever walked out on a job for your principles?
when you knew it meant you were going to start living in your car?

I have.

I just can't develop much indignation at having to sign an oath that you will "defend the constitution" ... especially if you're trying to get a job working for the government.

First of all it is a great book. Really terrific reading.

A piece of non-fiction.

The author is a graduate student in real life. He is attending the University of Chicago.

He and his family are Jewish.

They go and live in post war Germany, in the early 1950's.

They pretend to be Gentiles.

His mission is to connect with your average everyday German citizen and discuss with them what went on in Hitler's Germany. In the end, out of the countless people he befriends, he chooses ten people on which to model his book. It is the experiences of these ten that he describes.

Among the people he describes is one "heroic" character. A man who is a professor and who during the Third Reich years, risks his own life sneaking Jewish people out of Germany.

Also among the ten people is a man who is flawed. He is someone who is involved in setting fire to the local Jewish temple on Kristlenacht.

Now among the many conversations that the author has with the "hero" is this one:

The author: "Looking back over the Third Reich years, was there a time or event that you believe to be the definitive event that determined whether Germany would be lost or saved?"

And the "hero" responds, "Yes, I know exactly the moment that my nation was lost. It was the moment that I took the loyalty oath."

The author is surpirsed. And the hero goes on "I am not naive enough to bellieve that my taking or not taking the loyalty oath made a difference. I am only one person. But what I am saying is this: If everyone like me, of a decent background, from an affluent family, with intelligence and moral fortitude, if all of us had believed that there were enough of those others who would be refusing to take the oath, then we would have created enough of a community to take on the Third Reich.

"But in each of us backing away from a believe in our fellow German, we destroyed our chance at opposing the regime. And thus at that moment, all was lost."

I am paraphrasing, but that is the gist of the idea. We must stand for our beliefs and hope that enough others do also. Otherwise all is lost.

since he worked in a munitions plant he probably took the civil servant oath.
Contrast the oaths; one demands allegiance to a person.
The other to the constitution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_oath#Civil_servant_oath


http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/.const/.article_20

Constitution of Calfornia.

Or sign a loyalty oath.

I wouldn't sign it, because ever since Rumsfeld (Or was it Ashcroft) said that religious fanatics and environmentalists should be put on the terrorist list, I would be signing an oath against myself and my family and friends!!

and it never has been.
(I don't think there is such a thing)

I think the only people that honestly buy that are dittoheads and freepers

and the loyalty oath crusade.

Remember how it ended? Major _____ DeCoverly was supposed to sign the oath to get his dinner in the chow hall.

"Gimme Eat!"

Where the hell is Major _____ De Coverly when we need him?

Hands down. I should read it again . . .

;)

Growing up, I went to church with a guy who was a gunner in one of those bombers in Italy. When I read the book in college, I asked him how accurate it was after church one Sunday and got the best stories I'd ever heard. He loved the book and said he'd re-read it every once in awhile and that it was all true. :)

House Un American Committe.

This just happened a couple of months ago, and the court reinstated the woman.

demand, a lecturer holds a nontenured position (I know because I have been a lecturer at a state university for decades), and her superiors, who would be sure to be angered at her having successfuly defied them, would find a million reasons to fire her. It isn't hard for a hostile boss to find a "legal" reason to fire someone if that boss wants to.

So long as they receive any federal money in the form of grants or student loans why is it so groteque for an oath to defend the constitution?

Secondly, do we really want to regress back to the McCarty error of loyalty oaths and red-baiting?

This time, using those tactics to root-out pacifists, Jehova's Witnesses and Quakers?

pretty much everyone here thinks bush should be impeached for his transgressions against the constitution so its somewhat hypocritical to say that other government workers should be free of it.. Two wrongs do not make one right.

As I said I think that people should be allowed to qualify their oath to some degree but oaths in and of themselves are not bad..

it is about identifying pacifists, Quakers and JWs. So what's so good about this loyalty oath anyway? How about oaths that identify Muslims or Jews? Would that be okay too?

how can such an infringement upon one's rights be legal?

How can war profiteering be legal? How can railroading a popular governor into prison and then moving him around so tht he can't talk to his legal team be legal? How can firing US Attorneys who won't cooperate with such perversions of justice by bringing cases against political opponents be legal? How can outing a CIA operative be legal? How can dragging a person out of a public venue and sometimes even arresting him or her for wearing a T-shirt with a message or asking an uncomfortable question of a candidate be legal? How can herding peaceful protesters into "free speech zones" far away from those they want to hear their message be legal--especially when they are actually arrested if they refuse to be corralled behind fences in such zones?

None of these things are "legal." Every one of them violates either a clause in the Constitution or a law passed since the Constitution was signed. But until someone stands up against these violations and wins his or her case, such unconstitutional laws and acts will remain in effect. That is why I applaud the courage of such people as this lecturer--even though I admit that I don't have that much courage. I signed the loyalty oath required of all state employees when I became a lecturer in a state university over thirty years ago.

And better you have the job than some RW asswipe.

But I couldn't in good conscience take such an oath now. Like you point out, our government is a criminal enterprise.

It's great to see we have made such great progress since the McCarthy years. I'm sure that Roy Cohn must be proudly watching these events from his cold place in hell.

also what does it mean "to weed them out"? Like, Quakers can't hold state university jobs? What the hell?

Sue them.

then how the hell does John Yoo get to keep his job at UC Berkeley?

Advocating torture is OK, but being a pacifist isn't?

enemies, foreign and domestic, maybe all those who have taken such an oath of office, but have not only failed to protect the US Constitution, but who are a party to, an enabler of, the Constitution being eviscerated, maybe all those should be summarily fired and tried for the crime appropriate to the circumstances. :shrug: :D

apparently, so do Pennsylvania Bar members- notably one John Yoo.

and for all those who practice pervasion of state, the rule of law, and the Constitution. :D

I will never sign one and no longer am a register member of the Texas Democratic Party because of their bullshit loyalty oath that kept Kucinich off the ballot here.

or are they the inevitable products of fear... and cowardice?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_Committee

to the Constitution of the USA, and to the Constitution of the State of Florida, whatever the hell THAT says. I am sure if I actually read the constitution of Florida, there probably would be a whole lot of things I would not want to swear to. Who knows?

This was in order to be employed in the public schools.

Yeah...let's keep that alive.


Sure fits in well with Bush's America.

Seriously, we treat adults like high school students the week before prom, making them sign a pact not to drink or have sex. Or is that just an Alabama thing?

The HR person seemed taken back when I requested the alternative, and suggested I was the only person in the district who ever refused to sign.

Probably not the best way I could have started that job, heh.

....lol...down the wabbitt hole we go

12 years ago I completed my PhD and went job hunting. For two years, I worked adjunct at a small liberal-arts college in Kansas City while sending out a few dozen resumes and application packets in hopes of finding that elusive full-time, tenure-track position. After two years and two interviews and no job offers, I called it quits and went into a "second career" that didn't require a PhD.

But, had I been offered a job--particularly toward the end of my "job-hunting career"--that required I sign a "loyalty oath," I really don't know if I would've "bit the bullet" and done so in order to get my career going...

My hat's off to Ms. Gonaver. I wish her the best.

taking or swearing of oaths. Pathetic that the story didn't point that out.

...