To the Editor:
We read with interest Anna Dumont’s Chronicle essay, “What Autocrats Want From Academics: Servility” (The Chronicle Review, March 20). Dumont wrote that in “October 8, 1931, a law went into effect requiring, as a condition of their employment, every Italian university professor to sign an oath pledging their loyalty to the government of Benito Mussolini.” She wrote about the requirement for Italian scholars to take loyalty oaths and the essay’s subtitle asked, “Will that happen to us?”
Signing such oaths indeed has been required by faculty members in these United States of America. One example is the Feinberg Law of 1949 in New York State, and a 1953 statute extending the law to faculty members in higher education. The Board of Regents of the State University of New York (SUNY) required signing of the Feinberg Certificate as a condition of employment. The certificate included the following, “Anyone who is a member of the Communist Party … cannot be employed by the State University.”
One similarity between these historical examples is that failure to comply would result in termination. As Dumont wrote, all 12 Italian professors who refused to sign the oath, “I Dodici” were “immediately fired.” The consequences were significant, both for the I Dodici and Italian citizens more broadly.
Another similarity between the 1930s oath in Italy and the later Feinberg certificate in the United States is that both required a vow not to belong to opposition organizations. Indeed, central targets of the Feinberg certificate were any individuals who were members of the Communist Party.
In 1962, Harry Keyishian, an English instructor at the University at Buffalo, and four of his colleagues (Newton Garver, George Hochfield, Ralph Maud, & George Starbuck) refused to sign on principle, and SUNY officials subsequently announced that their contracts would not be renewed. Keyishian and his colleagues later filed suit, alleging violations of their First Amendment rights. The Keyishian v. Board of Regents case made its way to the United States Supreme Court, with the plaintiffs represented by attorney Richard Lipsitz Sr. In January 1967, the Supreme Court ruled in favor (5-4) of the plaintiffs, overturning the Feinberg Law in New York State. As a summary of the case indicates in the archives of the University at Buffalo Libraries, “The decision is considered a landmark regarding academic freedom under the First Amendment.” (Richard Lipsitz Sr. was Josie’s grandfather and an incredible person. Among his many other impressive achievements in his long, successful career in which he defended workers’ rights and labor unions, was successfully preventing the United States government from deporting Conor’s great grandfather, Ian McLennan, a Scottish immigrant, for his alleged ties to the Communist Party.)
We agree with Dumont that such oaths contribute to a political environment in which “freedom of thought, of speech, and of conscience” is relinquished. The United States Supreme Court has already decided this matter. Let’s not repeat history.
Conor T. McLennan
Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
Professor, Department of Psychology
Cleveland State University
Josie Lipsitz McLennan
Attorney
