Loyalty oaths
The Associated Press

UCLA physicist David Saxon, right, was one of 31 faculty fired from the University of California in 1950 for refusing to sign a "loyalty oath." Could such a thing happen today?

Featured Topic | Posted 23 weeks 5 days ago

Should loyalty oaths be required in 21st century America?

If requiring Americans to sign a loyalty oath as a condition of employment sounds like a relic of the 1950s, that's because it is. But several states, including California, still require loyalty-oaths from public employees. Wendy Gonaver, an American Studies lecturer at Cal State University in Fullerton, found out the hard way that California still takes the law seriously.

Gonaver lost her job because she would not swear to "defend" the U.S. and California constitutions "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

The loyalty oath was added to California's Constitution by voters in 1952 to root out communists in public jobs. Now, 16 years after the end of the Cold War, 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 liberty.

Gonaver's case is not unique. 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.

Do loyalty oaths have any place in American life? Should government employees be required to swear to defend the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic, as the president and members of the U.S. armed services do? Or is California's law a Cold War relic that should be repealed?

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Ben likes: Changing oaths

Eugene Volokh/The Volokh Conspiracy

Now I appreciate Cal State's desire to follow the law; the California Constitution does prescribe the text of the oath, and says "all public ... employees, ... except such inferior officers and employees as may be by law exempted, shall, before they enter upon the duties of their respective offices, take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation." But surely there are times to interpret laws as requiring substantial compliance rather than strict literalism. Even the precedent that Cal State's Human Resources director JoAnne Hill cites as supposedly requiring the exact text of the oath (see the article for more on that) seems to take this view: It rejected the applicant's modified oath only after stressing that the modifications were not "surplusage" or "innocuous or merely expository," but rather "ma[d]e equivocal the essential oath preceding [the applicant's personal statement]." Likewise, the venerable principle that laws should be interpreted in a way that minimizes possible constitutional problems (here chiefly First Amendment problems related to compelled speech) counsels in favor of reading the law to provide some flexibility. In light of this, letting Marianne Kearney-Brown sign the entire oath, simply with the addition of a term, seems sufficiently consistent with the state mandate.

True, the Supreme Court has held that it doesn't violate the First Amendment to require certain narrow loyalty oaths, including support-and-defend oaths, for government employees. But the Court's justification was precisely that these oaths "do[] not require specific action in some hypothetical or actual situation"; they embody "simply a commitment to abide by our constitutional system ... [and] a commitment not to use illegal and constitutionally unprotected force to change the constitutional system."

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Joel likes: Loyalty oaths and un-Americanism

Geoffrey R. Stone/Huffington Post

The very concept of "loyalty" is painfully elusive. It is defined entirely by a state of mind. Does it mean "my country, right or wrong"? Can a citizen oppose government policies - including a war - and still be "loyal"? Can a citizen be a pacifist and still be "loyal"?

Loyalty oaths reverse the essential relationship between the citizen and the state in a democratic society. As the Framers of our Constitution understood, the citizens of a self-governing society must be free to think and talk openly and critically about issues of governance. In a regime of loyalty oaths, it is the government that defines which thoughts and which ideas are permitted.

Dissenting views, nonconforming views, are deemed "disloyal." The very existence of such oaths reflects an utter lack of confidence in the American people. Nothing so dangerously corrupts the integrity of a democracy as a lack of faith in its own citizens.

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Loyalty pledge

Submitted on May 2nd, 2008 by Anonymous

With out dout ,Yes there should. However I want to put a twist on it. With every office oath we assume that the law will be followed. There for let make it count. If that person breaks the law and is found guilty or even plea bargins ( we all know that means i did it but dont have the guts to say that)That that person will give up there rights to vote, ever work for any municipality or governing body again. If they are ever cought again that they will sweep the city streets by hand in the city of the first offence. I will voluntier to keep up with to scum who do this.