Lester F. Beck, former chairman of the Cinema Department, immediately protster to U.S.C. president Fred C. Fagg, calling Deinmun's loss a "crippling blow" to the department.

This fall Deinum's case was reviewed by the Executive Committee of the University Senate at U. S. C. and that body recommended that "no further action should be taken."

Students protested to Fagg, calling his dismissal "antithetical to Constitutional principles and traditional aims of a University." They complained that he had not had a fair hearing since only the Board of Trustees had heard the case against him. The American Civil Liberties Union protested that "the dismissal of a teacher of tested competence for such irrelevant reasons as his use of a constitutionally guaranteed right is a breach of sound principles of academic freedom." The ACLU also objected that his removal was not accompanied by "academic due process," i.e., that he was not judged by a committee of his peers.

Fagg and U. S. C. were adamant, and Deinum was not reinstated.

Harry C. Steinmetz, a former psychology professor at San Diego State College, carried appeals through the courts in an attempt to win reinstatement in his position, but lost to an adverse ruling from the State Supreme Court, a verdict the U. S. Supreme Court refused to review.

He was fired early in 1954 for refusing to tell the State Board of Education whether he had ever been a member of the Communist Party, although he said he had never been a member of an organization advocating violent overthrow of the government.

California's Luckel Act requires public employees to answer, under oath, questions pertaining to personal advocacy of violent overthrow of the government, present knowing membership in any organization advocating such overthrow, and past-knowing membership in any such organization since September 10, 1948.

Steinmetz appealed his dismissal to the State Supreme Court, charging that the law was unconstitutional. But the Court, by a 6 to 1 vote, refused last July to consider this attack, holding that he was fired for refusing to answer questions, and that any attack on the constitutionality of possible firing for such membership was subsidiary in his case.

Steinmetz appealed to the Supreme Court, but in April the Court refused to grant certiorari. Justices William O. Douglas and Hugo L. Black dissented, favoring consideration of the case, while Chief Justice Earl Warren, who signed the Luckel Act into law as governor of California, did not take part in the decision.

Harry Slochower

New York's City Charter contains a section which provides for the dismissal of any municipal employee who refuses to answer official questions regarding his conduct on the grounds of possible self-incrimination. This section, known as Section 903, has been used to fire teachers who took the Fifth Amendment before Congressional investigating committees or before investigations conducted by the city itself.

Harry Slochower an associate professor of German at Brooklyn College, was one of those fired. In September, 1952, he cited the Fifth Amendment in refusing to tell the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee whether he had been a Communist in 1940 or 1941. In October the New York Board of Higher Education dismissed him because of Section 903.

Slochower fought the case in the courts, and last April won his case in the U. S. Supreme Court. The high court agreed with Slochower's contention that his dismissal was a violation of due process of law and deprived him of a constitutional right.

Associate Justice Tom C. Clark wrote the majority opinion, upheld 5 to 4, and said:

No Sinister Meaning