Sewing Loyalty Oaths To Your Cold Dead Hands

Ever once in a while I imagine a scenario in which I go into work and we’re suddenly forced into mandatory prayer meetings or bible readings before convening our leadership group meetings. We already have Jesus on the wall in the office and a few biblical sayings meant to provide inspiration. At which point I will have to ask myself how badly I want to pay the mortgage. My colleagues in the office know that I have nothing against Jesus, and in fact when things are going badly at work I will ask them if they are still in good with that Jesus guy because I am not overly picky about who helps out. They don’t really object to loaning him out. And I don’t really care if he helps me out, just the patients and their families.

Turns out that in that radical state of California, the place those on the right love to demonize and make threats about, I imagine radical rightists telling their children, “behave or you will be sent to California”, does not have the mellow soft institutions we were all led to believe.

Recently, a professor was fired for refusing to sign a loyalty oath. The entire article can be read here.

Wendy Gonaver was hired to teach says she was not told about the loyalty oath at the hiring and discovered it during orientation. She was told she had to sign it.

“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, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.”

When Gonaver declared she could not sign it citing her pacifist, Quaker, views and asked about religious exemptions she was told they did not exist. Why is it when people with right wing views declare religious objections in the public sphere we scramble to accommodate them lest we fuel the fire regarding the desire of those on the right to have “proof” that certain Christians are persecuted in a Godless liberal society?

Gonaver says she did a little research on the Internet. “I found out what other schools did and what they accepted,” she says. She discovered that some branches of the University of California system accepted statements that people can append to the loyalty oath

This particular institution did not accept any changes to the loyalty oath.

After she submitted her addendum, Gonaver got an e-mail back from Dean Margaret Atwell, who told Gonaver she was not permitted to attach it. Atwell said the University of California schools were distinct from the California State schools. “If you cannot sign the statement as it is, then we are not permitted to hire you,” Dean Atwell told her. “There is nothing I can do to change it

Cal State-Fullerton was unmoved. Gonaver never started teaching her classes.

So. An academic institution, a place where free speech is supposed to be tolerated, decided too much freedom was a bad, scary, thing.

Cal-State Fullerton defends its actions. “In a nutshell here is what happened and our position,” says Clara Potes-Fellow, director of media relations for the California State University System. “The applicant wrote an addendum that made changes or added qualifications to the oath. The university’s position is consistent with the Attorney General’s interpretation that any change or qualification to the oath is prohibited by the law

You certainly wouldn’t want a radical scary pacifist talking to students.

Maybe they can ask students to sign the loyalty oath before attending classes. After all university isn’t for learning. All of those silly ideas about teaching critical thinking skills are so impractical in today’s market. Isn’t it fun to mock philosophy graduates driving taxis? Isn’t that what is great about America?

Blind loyalty, that is what makes it possible to bash you over the head while you protest, and remind you that freedom has a price tag. The price tag: somebody else gets to define it, tell you about it, and take it away when it gets inconvenient.