'Evident Fruitlessness'

The group also hit loyalty or disclaimer oaths, calling them an "evil heritage" and saying that "they should be steadfastly opposed until they are eliminated." The AAUP attacked a tendency to view teachers as particularly disloyal, implicit in asking them as a class to swear disclaimer oaths, and it also scored such oaths for "their evident fruitlessness." Generally, the AAUP opposed investigations of individuals against whom there is no reasonable suspicion of illegal or unprofessional conduct or of an intent to engage in such conduct.

The group justified this defense of academic freedom "not as a special right, but as a means whereby we may make our appointed contribution to the life of the commonwealth. The ability to hold and defend unpopular doctrines was seen as a necessity to the advancement of knowledge."

But the report was not only a plea for better treatment for professors, as some of its critics seemed to think. Before noting the circumstances under which a tenure faculty member might be ousted, the AAUP said:

"The academic community has a duty to defend society and itself from subversion of the academic process by dishonest tactics, including political conspiracies to deceive students and lead them unwittingly into acceptance of dogmas or false causes. Any member of the academic profession who has given reasonable evidence that he uses such tactics should be proceeded against forthwith, and should be expelled from his position if his guilt is established by rational procedure."

The stated argument drew little direct criticism from within the academic community, despite the previous positions of many educators that Communists should never be allowed to teach. But the national press often disagrees with the professors' view, contending that party membership itself should be enough to bar a professor.

The report then took up alleged infringements of academic freedom over the last eight years, considering 18 institutions and how well they had met standards of academic due process and upheld academic freedom generally. Censure was recommended for the University of California, Jefferson Medical College, Ohio State University, Rutgers University, and Temple University.

Censure was voted for Ohio State on the grounds that it fired Professor Byron T. Darling in 1953 for his invocation of the Fifth Amendment. When he heard of the censure recommendation, President Howard L. Bevis of Ohio State attacked the findings bitterly.

Bevis charged that Ohio State had not received a fair hearing because the special committee had sent no on-the-spot investigators, relying instead on the public record. He also scored the premise that Communist Party membership was not sufficient ground for dismissal, although that was not at issue in the Darling case.

Findings Unjustified?

Clark Kerr, chancellor of the University of California, also hit the findings because of subsequent developments at Berkeley, calling the recommendation "unjustified and singularly inappropriate at this time." Censure had been urged for the administration's support of loyalty oaths and the firing of professors who refused to take them.

Censure was demanded for California because of its failure to stand up for academic freedom in the loyalty oath controversy. Jefferson Medical College was condemned for firing three faculty members without giving explicit reasons.

Rutgers was censured for firing a professor for his use of the Fifth Amendment, as was Temple University.

Oklahoma, not condemned by the Special Committee, was censured after an overriding recommendation of the Association's Council for a "highly improper" and "speedy" firing of a professor.

The committee's recommendations were forwarded to the governing council of the Association, which considered them again before the AAUP's convention in April. The council passed all the recommendations, and upon reconsideration of the University of Oklahoma case, where the committee had recommended no censure, decided to urge censure, feeling that the situation was worse than the committee had held.