Wendy Gonaver was hired by Cal-State Fullerton last fall to teach American Studies and Women’s Studies. As part of her American Studies course, she had planned to teach a section on McCarthyism. But she wasn’t allowed to teach at all because she refused to sign the loyalty oath that the state of California still insists that its employees sign. (The Los Angeles Times broke this story on May 2, and I interviewed Gonaver on May 5.)
When Gonaver was hired, she says she wasn’t told there even was a loyalty oath to sign. She went to the orientation for adjunct faculty on Friday, August 17. Classes were to begin the following Tuesday. She had already prepared her curriculum for Intro to American Studies.
“One of the requirements is that you cover constitutional issues,” Gonaver says, so she was looking forward to going over the McCarthyism period with her students. But at the orientation, she says everyone was told, “Here’s the loyalty oath. You’ve got to sign it.”
This is the text of the oath: “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.”
As a Quaker and a Buddhist and a pacifist, Gonaver says she could not sign the oath without registering her views. “As I was sorting through all this, I was listening to reports about extraordinary renditions and eliminating habeas corpus and whether torture was a fine thing for us to engage in,” she says. “I am opposed to war and have never seen one in my lifetime I could support.”
Gonaver says the oath is “not only an infringement of my religious beliefs but my right to free speech.” The last part of the oath that says you’re signing it “freely, without any mental reservation” really rankled her. “It’s not enough that you’re going to defend the Constitution, but you can’t have an opinion about it [the oath] that’s negative,” she says. “That’s what sealed it for me—that I’d have to perjure myself to take the job.” So she objected to it on the spot.
“I raised my hand and asked what kind of exceptions there are for religious minorities,” she says, adding that she had researched such exceptions in preparation for her McCarthyism lectures. She was told there were none.
“I blurted out, ‘I can’t sign it,’ ” she recalls. She says there was a hush in the room, and then she was given the name of someone to talk to after the orientation. That person told her, “You have to sign this otherwise we can’t give you the keys to the classroom and you can’t teach,” Gonaver recalls.
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. “So over the weekend I drafted my statement,” she says.
Her first sentence read: “I support and respect the U.S. Constitution and therefore must attest to my belief that required loyalty oaths violate the First Amendment.” She went on to state that the oath was an “instrument of intimidation” and a form of “religious discrimination.”
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.”
Gonaver showed up anyway for the first day of class, “On Tuesday, I actually came to work to see what would happen,” she says. “But I had no keys to the classroom.” Afterward, she contacted the ACLU, but she hasn’t heard from the group for a while and she isn’t planning on suing Cal-State Fullerton.
“Public universities are kind of strapped for cash,” she says. “I’m not interested in making money off of them by suing. I’m interested in getting my job back and an apology and an admission that what they did is wrong.”
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.”
Teresa Borden, communications specialist for the ACLU of Southern California, says it is concerned about this situation and is looking into it further. The group may propose to the state legislature a religious exemption to the loyalty oaths, says Borden. Gonaver says that People for the American Way has expressed interest in her case, as has the American Association of University Professors.
By the way, she didn’t get another teaching job for the last school year, but she hopes to soon. “I sent my resume to UC-Irvine in the history department,” she says. “This fall would be great.”
Update: Happy Ending to Story about Professor Fired for Loyalty Oath