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GUESTS: Wendy Gonaver, and Judith Schaeffer, Legal Director at People For the American Way Foundation

An Adjunct professor at Cal State Fullerton was recently fired from her job over a loyalty oath. Wendy Gonaver, teaching American Studies, found herself taking a stand on an issue she might well have discussed in her own classroom. The 1952 McCarthy-era oath in question called on signers to defend the US and California constitutions “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Gonaver is a Quaker and a pacifist – she objected to the state oath as an infringement of her rights of free speech and religious freedom and asked to submit a statement explaining her views. She was denied the right to submit the statement and fired. But she wasn’t the first Quaker to be targeted by this oath. Earlier this year, Marianne Kerney-Brown, a Quaker Math instructor was fired by the California State University at East Bay for wanting to add the word “nonviolently” to the oath. She was later reinstated after the case attracted media. The State Senate tomorrow votes on a bill introduced by Senator Alan Lowenthal to make it harder to dismiss an employee over the oath.

Read the LA Times Article that broke the story: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-oath2-2008may02,0,6280956.story