Posted on 02/26/2005 8:27:19 PM PST by freespirited
Elissa Guralnick is a tenured English professor at the University of Colorado. She holds two advanced degrees from Yale and has served the university honorably for nearly 32 years.
But if she doesn't sign a loyalty oath by 5 p.m. today, she says, the university promises to fire her. Never mind that she signed it three decades ago. Never mind that she's not required to sign again.
This is the utter madness of the Ward Churchill hullabaloo. Churchill, the CU professor who likens 9/11 twin-tower victims to Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, signed a loyalty oath when he was hired, as state law requires.
But when the press asked to see Churchill's personnel files recently, CU couldn't find his signed oath. The university asked him to sign another, which he did.
That should have been that. It wasn't.
About 2 p.m. Monday, CU-Boulder campus Chancellor Phil DiStefano sent an "urgent" e-mail to all faculty members, informing them that CU was reviewing all faculty files to ensure that "signed copies of a loyalty oath are maintained for these employees." State law requires all faculty to swear to uphold the U.S. and Colorado Constitutions.
DiStefano alluded to the Churchill file, noting that "copies of the oath for some of our teaching faculty may not be readily available." If signed oaths can't be found, the chancellor said, faculty will be asked to sign a new oath "as required by law."
Paul Levitt, an estimable English professor who began teaching at CU four decades ago, signed the oath then and won't sign again. "I smell the odor of neo-McCarthyism," Levitt said Tuesday.
This week, Levitt hired a lawyer, who called one of the university's attorneys. Levitt's lawyer asked what would happen if the professor didn't sign again. "He'll be terminated first thing Saturday morning," came the reply.
Levitt was a CU student during the McCarthy era and won't abet this new incarnation. Besides, the law requires only that faculty members sign the oath, not that they keep signing it whenever the university catches flak.
After Levitt refused to re-sign, the university managed to find his original oath. He is off the hook. But his colleague Guralnick, with whom he co-directed the University Writing Program for many years, is still required to sign again.
Guralnick will sign a notarized statement noting that she already signed the oath. The university says that won't suffice. If Guralnick doesn't sign by 5 today, she'll be terminated immediately, a CU attorney told her lawyer.
Guralnick has no problem with the oath or the Constitution. "I'm all for the Constitution. I wish the people who want us to sign this oath were."
She added: "When a loyalty oath is introduced in the atmosphere of a witch hunt, those who sign are swearing not to the text of the oath, but to a subtext. Loyalty is sworn not to the body politic, but to the political whims of those who have called for the oath to be signed — or, in this case, signed again. I will not swear allegiance to witch hunters.
"I signed the loyalty oath in 1973, when the atmosphere was benign. That must suffice. I have not signed again, nor will I do so."
CU spokeswoman Pauline Hale did not explicitly confirm that those who don't sign again will be fired. She did say, "It is required in order to remain employed. And it is also mentioned as a requirement in their faculty contract."
Hale said the legal and contractual requirements make the oath "a pretty serious matter." She said the re-signing of oaths "must be done quickly."
"There is the issue of it being state law. Because we have been unable to find copies for some of the teaching faculty, we must require that we have a signed copy." Asked about the fact that the law requires only that faculty sign once, not that the university be able to keep good records, Hale replied, "If we can't find the records, how do we know they've signed?"
Many professors are complying. CU psychology professor Lewis O. Harvey signed the oath in 1974. He signed again on Thursday, but he added this note: "I am signing under duress of the threat to be fired if I do not sign."
Harvey says that asking everyone to sign again, while academic freedom and free speech are under siege, could be seen as "a not-so-subtle form of intimidation."
Indeed. In 1951, news that a CU professor had once been a communist prompted the university to demand that all faculty sign a (long overlooked) loyalty oath. Instructor Paul J. Kermiet refused to sign because he was a pacifist. He was fired.
The university, like its perennially strident and screeching critics, has once again gone mad.
Reach Clint Talbott at (303) 473-1367 or talbottc@dailycamera.com
Send every one of these whiners to boot camp.....
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Great idea! Well if neo-McCarthy-ism is coming back and into our GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS then maybe there might be some hope for this country, which these communists feel IS NO LONGER AMERICA, BUT SOME MARXIST COLONY....yes a good stint in boot camp, followed BY SIGNING AN OATH TO DEFEND AMERICA might be a great starting point for these utopian, protected, socialists whose world does not extend beyond the fantasy of a text book...
It is high time the parents, who disgustingly continue to pay the salaries of these radical, anti-American leftists, start thinking about not only the future of their kids, but the future of this country.
If they signed it once, surely they couldn't object to doing so again. They should stop blathering. I'd love to see the leftiest ones fired for insubordination.
Great opportunity for CU to clean house!
Well, he IS an unrepentant liar, so what's an oath matter to him, anyway?
Time to get rid of tenure.
Is Churchills signed oath a mirrored copy, just like his artwork?
LOL!
If they don't like it, they should quit.
The only witch hunt going on is for the heads of some UofC administrators who can't maintain records.
"I signed the loyalty oath in 1973, when the atmosphere was benign. That must suffice. I have not signed again, nor will I do so."
1973: The the Viet Nam War; Wounded Knee; Watergate; OPEC... Oh yea, a much more benign time.
Fire her. She's obviously lost touch with reality.
Don't you realize?
EVERYTHING is much, MUCH worse, now that George W. Bush is president!!!
/ sarcasm
This is real simple. Had these people and their colleagues been doing their jobs and not granted tenure to a loud mouth leftist bully with only a masters degree and who's research seems quite suspect, CU would not be under the pressure it is under.
This loyalty oath thing only came up because they did not do their jobs. They should just sign the oath again if CU can not find theirs and then they should quietly vow to return CU to an academic institution not a political one. They should promise themselves they will only vote to hire and tenure people based on scholarship not politics or political correctness. Had they done that in Churchhill case, they would not be in the fix they find themselves in.
I think the problem here is she hasn't had anything to protest since the end of the cold war (another one, but not 1973 specific) and is going through a midlife crisis.
Oaths are more or less a joke. It was this way in England in the 1600s. It was an amusing tool in Puritan America...where you swore a oath against witchcraft and fornification. It also served its purpose during the revolutarionary period. It came back during during the civil war. It was a joke during the McCarthy period of the 1950s. And here we are today...with oaths coming back yet again.
With an exception of military and law enforcement personnel...oaths are basically worthless after that point. We have politicans who swear oaths, and yet take millions behind closed doors as pay-offs. We have doctors who swear oaths...yet charge illegal funding charges on medical treatments.
As for a university professor who must swear an oath...where exactly do you draw the line? If you include in the oath that you will teach only what is approved by the state board...you might find severe limits. If you swear to obey the leadership of the university without question...then you might be forced to pass stupid football players based on orders from the university president. If you swear to be absolutely ethical...then you might find yourself in a long debate over what is ethical and what is not ethical.
They need to understand they work for a STATE university. You take The Man's money, baby, you gotta play The Man's game.
Don't like it? Enjoy food stamps, baby!
>>As for a university professor who must swear an oath...where exactly do you draw the line? <<
From a related article earlier today:
"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.""
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1351896/posts
McCarthy was right. Sign the damn form.
Then perhaps if its such a great idea...let require it of all employees (government, civilian, etc). If you apply to Wal-Mart...you oughta have the same oath or if you are applying for a job at the post office...the oath ought to be required on day one of the job. And if we repeated the oath, at least once per week...then we'd all be law-abiding citizens and be totally dedicated to the constitution. I'm all for it...if it is such a wonderful idea. But I've got a funny feeling that some folks here might say that this wasn't the intention of the oath, and that state/federal employees are different. I counter with the argument that if the oath is supposed to ensure dedication...then we all need it.
I see nothing wrong with everyone that lives under the protection of the U.S. signing an oath of loyalty. Kinda like the Pledge of Allegiance in school.
As far as being a joke, it's only a joke if one considers his integrity a joke.
If the oath requires giving to Caesar what is God's then there's a problem, but I can't cite anywhere that I've encountered that. A pacifist can and will be exempted from military service if he makes that known before he enters service. If one doesn't believe in God then there's no conflict.
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