"The only complete legal defense to these committee hearings rests, therefore, in the Fifth Amendment. This Amendment has historically been recognized as a method of protecting the innocent from false accusations and tyrannical prosecutions. The courts have repeatedly pointed out how even in cases of ordinary crime, innocent persons may be trapped into incriminating admissions. But in political cases the possibilities of entrapment are multiplied ad infinitum..."

The Way Out

There was yet another view, however, which enabled a witness to hold his moral convictions about incriminating others without using the Fifth Amendment. First used before the Jenner Committee by Irving Goldman, who teaches anthropology at Sarah Lawrence College, it can best be called "calculated contempt." To Goldman and his counsel, Arthur Garfield Hays, the best way to reconcile one's conscience without harming his college was speaking openly about personal activities, refusing to testify about others.

Goldman admitted he was a member of the Communist Party, which he left in 1942. He would not answer any questions about his associates, not on grounds of the Fifth Amendment, but purely on moral grounds. The trustees of Sarah Lawrence backed Goldman, while the Jenner Committee failed to even cite him for contempt.

The board, in its statement, said that Goldman had based his action on a personal standard of fair dealing, not on any intentional of defying the committee. The board also urged another instructor, Paul Aron, to speak freely about himself before Jenner's group, but Aron Stood on the Fifth Amendment. On April 8 he resigned, before the board had decided on any action. "The resignation is not in any way the result of a request or of pressure by the President or Board of Trustees of the College," he wrote in his letter to President Harold Taylor. "Nor is it by reason of the fact that in my appearance before the Senate Sub-Committee on Internal Security I used the Fifth Amendment." Aron explained that "purely personal reasons" had forced him to resign, but this was due to his placing himself in an untenable position in the small college. Aron's case should clarify the fact that a teacher who keeps his affiliations secret must find it difficult to remain in an educational institution which requires frankness and trust between its members.

At Harvard, before the Jenner Committee on May 8, David Hawkins, on a year's appointment at the University, also used the principal of calculated contempt. Hawkins admitted to membership in the Communist Party from 1938 to 1948, but like Goldman refused to talk about others.

Part of the testimony went like this:

"I order and direct you to answer the question," said Senator Jenner.

"I'm sorry sir," answered Hawkins, "I must refuse."

"Well, you have counsel here."

"I have counsel, yes sir."

"And you have rights under the Fifth Amendment. Are you exercising those rights?"

"I am claiming no privilege under the Fifth Amendment."

Personal Standard

Hawkins added that he had no need of consulting his counsel. As with Goldman, the Committee has taken no further action, and it seems as though a witness who speaks honestly and fearlessly about himself but refuses to pull others into the investigations will secure public approval. As Mr. Ernest has pointed out, the sympathies of the American people do not lie with the informer.

From a compilation, then, of the instructors who have appeared before the committees we must conclude that complete silence is not the answer for those who testify. There are, of course, some cases in which use of the Fifth Amendment may be applicable. But in the great majority it has not helped either the universities or the professors who have used it.

At Harvard, Leon J. Kamin, Daniel Fine, Furry, and Holon Wendler Dean Markham invoked the amendment. Although none were suspended or fired, all the facts that were not told the committees were released by the Harvard Corporation when it announced its decision. Few instructors have been dismissed because they told the truth about past associations in another time and in another climate of opinion