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Editorial: Loyalty oath is outdated
Archaic language, party test should go
Published 12:00 am PDT Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Story appeared in EDITORIALS section, Page B6
Some Sacramentans might remember the plight of Zari Wigfall, a college student at Sacramento City College in 1994. She had gotten a campus job as a peer counselor assistant but, as a Jehovah's Witness, she refused to sign California's Cold War-era "Oath of Allegiance" required of all public employees. She was fired after a week. Later, when she signed on as a theater house manager, the same thing happened. Because of her religious beliefs, she lost two public jobs.
A decade later, a California State University, East Bay, math teacher and practicing Quaker was fired over the oath of allegiance. She said she would support and defend the constitution, but only nonviolently. After public outcry over her dismissal, she was reinstated to her job.
But the oath remains, a remnant of anti-communist Cold War hysteria in the late 1940s and 1950s. Now the Los Angeles Times reports that yet another Quaker teacher has been fired over the oath, this time at California State University, Fullerton.
The Fullerton firing is one more reason to get rid of the 1952 oath of allegiance that assumes California "faces a clear and present danger" that communists will "infiltrate" public jobs with the aim of establishing a "totalitarian dictatorship."
Senate Bill 1322 by state Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, would eliminate that archaic language and delete membership in the Communist Party as a reason for dismissing a public employee. California is the only state that allows public employees to be dismissed for membership in a political party. Those who act to overthrow the government by force or violence could still be dismissed.
SB 1322 is expected to come up for a Senate vote Thursday. It's time to get past the era of "red-baiting," where mere membership in an organization – without any action to incite or commit a crime – forces public employees to surrender basic constitutional rights (including freedom of speech and freedom of association).
The Legislature should pass this bill and then work on getting the 1952 loyalty oath out of the California Constitution.
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