Posted on 02/26/2005 7:21:58 PM PST by ken21
Lost oaths, lost jobs? By JOSEPH THOMAS and MATT WILLIAMS Colorado Daily Staff
Midterms are in full swing at CU, but at least one CU professor said Wednesday there was a time this week when he wasn't sure he would be back for the second half of the semester.
English professor Paul Levitt told his class Wednesday that there was a 50-50 chance he would be fired by the University before he had a chance to grade his students' term papers.
The reason?
Levitt said he didn't want to re-sign a faculty loyalty oath that CU administrators are trying to ensure is signed by all current CU-Boulder faculty.
"Having been subjected to that humiliation once, I wasn't going to do it a second time," Levitt said Thursday. AD (_middle)
The oath reads "I solemnly (swear) (affirm) that I will uphold the constitution [sic] of the United States and the constitution [sic] of the state of Colorado, and I will faithfully perform the duties of the position upon which I am about to enter."
It has resurfaced as an issue at CU after embattled CU ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill acknowledged that he had signed one last Friday.
"I base everything I do on the clear principles of constitutional law, and from my point of view, beginning with the U.S. Constitution, everything has to conform to that, including the Colorado Constitution," Churchill said. "As far as I'm concerned, the U.S. without attribution ripped off a big chunk of that Constitution from us," Churchill said.
By "us," Churchill said he meant Native Americans, specifically, the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy.
Levitt said he remembered originally signing the loyalty oath a few years after he first started teaching at the University in 1964.
Levitt's students Wednesday indicated Levitt was initially concerned he might be fired over refusing to sign the oath.
"Professor Levitt told us in class that he may not be back on Monday because he may be fired for not re-signing a loyalty oath to the university. He said that no matter what happened he would still get our papers back to us," said Crystal Bedley, a student in Levitt's class.
Levitt confirmed he was told that if he didn't re-sign the oath, he would face termination. So, Levitt hired lawyer Carl Manthei.
The situation was defused when, according to Manthei, CU legal counsel called him Thursday to confirm Levitt's original, signed loyalty oath had been found by the University on microfiche.
"It seems very odd, number one, that they would have everyone sign an oath that has already been signed in the past," Manthei said. "And secondly that they would have given them a deadline, and thirdly, that they would threaten termination."
University spokesperson Pauline Hale said that the target deadline is today at 5 p.m. to verify whose signed loyalty oaths are in their personnel files and whose remain to be signed.
A precise count of the number of missing loyalty oaths among CU faculty should be compiled by next week, Hale said.
Kathryn Eggert, chair of the English department, said Thursday her department had tracked down only 20 percent of the English department's loyalty oaths so far.
The rest of the faculty's oaths are probably on microfiche in "cold storage," she said.
Interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano sent a campus-wide e-mail to CU-Boulder personnel on Monday that ordered an administrative review of the files of all professors, instructors and teachers to verify that they had signed the oath.
The loyalty oath is a part of the Colorado Revised Statutes, which requires professors, teachers, and instructors at all state colleges and universities to swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Colorado.
Levitt said the University is bullying the faculty of the CU system by making them sign the oath.
"To my mind it was simply a form of public humiliation on the part of the faculty making them kiss the ring of the Pope and let them know who's boss, to intimidate them and get them in line, all of that business," Levitt said.
Levitt said he knows of at least two other faculty members who do not want to sign the oath again.
Kiss the ring of the Pope? Public humiliation? hmmm...sounds like an anti-Catholic slur.
In order for these clowns to keep their jobs, will they have to engage lawyers who invoke the Constitution which is something they are unwilling to embrace? Of course, that is pretty much the motus operandi of Communist and Socialist freeloaders living in a free country, bite the hand that feeds them.
Amen. The University system know they could not survive that scrutiny, and that probably 30% or more of their "professors" would test positive.
"I base everything I do on the clear principles of constitutional law, and from my point of view, beginning with the U.S. Constitution, everything has to conform to that, including the Colorado Constitution," Churchill said. "As far as I'm concerned, the U.S. without attribution ripped off a big chunk of that Constitution from us," Churchill said.
By "us," Churchill said he meant Native Americans, specifically, the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy.
>>> could someone explain what churchill means?
(sarcasm) Oh he has take an oath to respect the rights of other people including his student, how horrible...
the amusing thing is that it says churchill recently signed!
applegate ranch above pointed out churchill's ignorance of the u.s. constitution and reliance upon the iroquois confederacy, which had slight influence upon our constitition.
and, churchill, as we now know, is not even indian.
I venture that if the truth be known that many of our judges and many other officials in public service have not taken their oath.
There are articles at the Empire Journal detailing that very topic! (FYI TEJ articles may only have the url and title posted).
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