LOYALTY OATH May 4, 2008
Posted by wmmbb in US Politics.trackback
All public service employees are required to sign a loyalty oath in California, but the rigor at which the oath is applied differs. For example, the California State Universities apply a stricter regime than the University of California
The oath is a follows:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the
Constitution of the State of California; that I take this obligation freely,and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.
Wendy Gonaver, a new lecturer, who had come from interstate and had not known about the oath, asked to submit a short statement that explained her views as a Quaker, but the university officials insisted that she take the oath as written. Now it seems this is a case of “two legs good, four legs better”:
University of California employees are allowed to include an addendum with the oath, but the California State University system takes what the paper describes as a “firmer approach.”
“The position of the university is that her entire added material was against the law,” spokeswoman Clara Potes-Fellow says.
The full story is covered by the Los Angeles Times. Non-citizens are not required to sign the oath. As the reports mention the oath dates back to 1952, which just goes to show that the concern with security is not new, but the perceived threat is now external and foreign, rather than internal and national. I wonder how long the neurosis will retain fixed on external “others”.
What sense does it make to have loyalty oaths in a liberal democracy? How can a university, of any description justify the taking of such an oath, mindful that by design it will exclude the full range of argument? History may be episodic or epochal, but we cannot help but be caught up with in it, the more so if we deny what happened in the past.
What am I missing here?
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