Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed - James Sallis, a novelist who may be the most famous faculty member at Phoenix College, has for many years taught as an adjunct at the community college. But he told Phoenix reporters hat he's quitting -- rather than sign a state loyalty oath the college has previously ignored but is now making hundreds of adjuncts sign.
Officials at the college told the station that it had no choice under state law but to require Sallis to sign. The officials said that, in preparation for an accreditation review, the college found that 800 adjunct instructors -- Sallis among them -- had never signed the loyalty oath, and all have been told they must do so to keep their jobs.
Arizona does in fact have a loyalty oath requirement for all employees of the state or other government units. In the oath, people must pledge to "support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the State of Arizona; That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, and defend them against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Opponents of loyalty oaths tend to say that they do in fact support the constitution, but that requiring such support is a violation of their free speech rights, especially given that such oaths were a tool of McCarthy-era politicians to harass those with whom they disagreed.
2 comments:
Sallis is possibly on the wrong side of this issue. Any state government employee living in a red state south of the Mason-Dixon line should be required to uphold the U.S. Constitution. With 43% of GOP'ers amenable to a military coup, Sallis should be the first to sign up if he likes our civilian form of government. Unless this is an oath imposed by secessionists who believe the constitution requires them to be loyal to the state as it dissolves the Union.
Among those who take a loyalty oath seriously are the whistleblowers.
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