LA Times: Do away with loyalty oaths
The LA Times has this editorial today: Do away with loyalty oaths: Requiring state employees to swear loyalty to the Constitution is a relic. It begins:
Faced with a relic of the McCarthy era on one side and, on the other, a remedial-math teacher who wouldn’t let the matter go, California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown did the sanest thing within his power. He provided written assurance that the teacher, a Quaker, would not have to bear arms as part of a loyalty oath. Now it’s up to the Legislature to do the sanest thing within its power — move to rid the state of the oath.
Marianne Kearney-Brown was rehired at Cal State East Bay, which had fired her for refusing to sign the oath required of California state and municipal employees, in which they swear in part to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Kearney-Brown is no monger of hatred against her country; she simply wanted to add the word “nonviolently” to the oath . . .