Student Loyahy-Should It Be Questioned? Yes
HAAG, ERNEST VAN DEN
Two Views The articles by Ernest van den Haag and Carl A. Auerbach reflect the controversy that has arisen over the impact of the National Defense Education Act on academic freedom in the U.S. The...
...What is freedom if not choice...
...Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Oberlin and a number of the best, as well as of the "progressive," colleges have withdrawn...
...But however useless the oath, how can it be a positive evil...
...There is nothing to prevent Pusey from asking everybody to swear the same oath—if he is really disturbed because only the borrowers are asked to do so...
...They are unlikely to screen out effectively the disloyal or subversive, who are quite likely to perjure themselves merrily...
...YES: Ernest van den Haag A GROWING NUMBER of colleges have withdrawn from the Federal Student Loan Program because it requires a loyalty oath from applicants and an affidavit stating that they are not members or supporters of organizations seeking to overthrow constitutional government by unconstitutional means...
...There is little to say in favor of the loyalty oath or of the affidavit...
...readers will recall his precedent-making article, "Jury Trials and Civil Rights," in our April 29, 1957 issue...
...The law, which provides funds to colleges for student loans, requires the applicants to sign a loyalty oath and a non-Communist affidavit...
...More affluent students are better off...
...And why should anyone who cannot or will not swear loyalty have a claim to a Federal loan...
...Student Loyalty — Should It Be Questioned...
...Thus witnesses, or officeholders, or soldiers are asked to swear—and students who ask for government help in their studies...
...The only justification for not giving students the opportunity to decide whether to swear loyalty to the Constitution would be that such an oath is a positive evil and that it is the duty of the university not to tempt students into evil actions or oaths...
...For instance, they must pay back the money...
...Pusey does not accuse the government of interfering: he only states "that it seems to many" that the government may "imply interference" without coming out and saying that it is so, or seems so to him, or to Harvard...
...The universities which, in the name of freedom, deny students an opportunity to decide whether to borrow money have in the past insisted that students should be allowed to make up their own minds on whether to listen to Communist speakers, to support or to join Communist organizations—but not, it turns out now, on whether to disclaim such support...
...Pusey obviously has no faith in his students...
...Not so...
...To the extent to which university leaders have succeeded in proving this point—and I would not deny that they have—they have furnished a decisive argument for universal equal suffrage and against those dreamy intellectuals who want to give additional weight to the vote of the educated...
...Auerbach, professor of law at the University of Wisconsin, has frequently written on civil rights...
...And the New York Times has editorially supported them...
...To be sure, the loyalty provision concerns only those who need to apply for a loan...
...But it seems to me that the government's program is decreasing the discriminatory burden inherent in poverty by its readiness to lend students who are deserving—i.e., among other things, loyal—and Pusey is increasing the discriminatory burden by refusing in practice to allow loyal and needy students to borrow...
...The unwary might conclude that some of our best universities are led by Communists...
...President Eisenhower himself opposes the affidavit, though he favors retention of the oath...
...They, of course, are also the beneficiaries...
...No one would compel him...
...They are led by confusionists full of good intentions and bent on proving the political incompetence of university leadership or, perhaps, the nontransferability of intelligence demonstrated elsewhere to the analysis of rather simple political problems...
...It would be extremely hard to prove such perjury, and it is improbable that any students would be convicted of perjury...
...The case for disenfranchising educational leaders seems to be no worse than the case for disenfranchising illiterates...
...By withdrawing from the program, Pusey and his colleagues (supported, I fear, by a good number of faculty members) refuse to allow students to decide for themselves whether or not to ask for Federal help on the conditions on which it is offered...
...The loans are offered under the National Defense Education Act of 1958 as a privilege in recognition of the special importance of students to our national defense...
...Why should it be bad for anyone to swear to something that is true...
...Why deprive everybody so that the non-swearer need not be embarrassed—which he would not be anyway, for there will be many who will not borrow and therefore not swear simply because they don't need or want to, and not because they object to the loyalty oath...
...Futile efforts were made in the last session of Congress to repeal at least the latter, and further efforts are promised in the new session...
...The two controversialists here are not new to these pages...
...Indeed, it is hard to see why the government's willingness to lend money to students—but not to those who refuse to disclaim subversive affiliations—should be considered interference...
...An oath may be demanded because of the importance, or special function, or privilege of the person swearing it—not because of special suspicion...
...In justifying Harvard's withdrawal from the program, President Nathan M. Pusey added that the loyalty and disclaimer provision discriminates among students because the neediest students only are involved: and because "it also seems to many to imply interference on the part of the government in an area of administration which belongs properly without restriction to free institutions of higher learning...
...They don't have to borrow...
...But why does he not allow each student to be guided by his own conscience...
...Perhaps Pusey would not want to borrow at the price of swearing loyalty to our government...
...Van den Haag, professor of social philosophy at New York University, is co-author of The Fabric of Society...
...There is no merit to this argument...
...As every commencement speaker tells them, students are privileged and important because they are the future leaders of the nation...
...The universities that have withdrawn argue that in demanding the loyalty oath and the disclaimer from students who want to borrow, the Federal government acts as though they are more suspect than other people...
...They might want to swear loyalty to democracy . . . better not lead them into temptation...
...And what is here denied students in the name of freedom if not choice...
...Yet it seems quite legitimate for the government to try to make as certain as it can that the students to whom it extends help are not planning to overthrow it by violence...
...The wording of the last statement is quite cagey...
...But as a matter of fact, lenders have always selected among borrowers, and borrowers always have accepted conditions that non-borrowers needn't bother about...
...However ineffective the means chosen to fulfill this wish, they are illegitimate only if harmful, debasing or restrictive of freedom...
Vol. 43 • February 1960 • No. 5
