Evening star., 1951-02-05
The Schools and the Files

The Schools and the Files
The House Committee on Un-American Ac-
tivities maintains two main categories OF files
One is the public" file, available to agencies and
individuals authorized by the committee to con-
suit them. The other, "investigative" files, con-
tain more detailed information and are acces-.
sible usually only to the committee and its agents.
Since inception of the loyalty program most
If not all of the Government agencies including
the Civil Service Commission, have been making
continuous use of the public flies. These consist
of names, with information which has not been
evaluated as to its significance. The committee
makes no pretense that such information is to be
regarded as evidence. The files are used as the
beginning, not the end, of an investigation and
are in no sense conclusive The fact that one is
listed in such files carries no implication in itself
of any sort OF guilt.
Through curious process of evolution,
shaped by the temper of the times and taclty
recommended and approved by the Board of
Education the superintendent of Schools in re-
cent months has come to use the public files of
the committee as check on individuals invited
to appear in the public schools The information
furnished from these files to the superintendent
consists of reported aflliation. past or present,
with one or more of the publications and organ
tzationS which the Attorney General, the Com
n1ittee on Un-American Activities or somebody
else has listed as subverSive. But in the case OF
the schools, this unevauated information is used
as final test of whether the individual is &C
ceptable as speaker in the schools No inveSti-
CATION, in other words, is made as to the signi-
ficance of the information, whether it is
relevant or accurate.
This is an erroneous use of the files by the
schools and it should be discontinued or imple
mented by other steps. The information in such
files should not be the sole criteria of an indi-
vidual'S acceptability as speaker in the public
schools. If the Board of Education should insist
that the files be so used, then the Board should
establish in the schools something comparable
to loyalty board with means to make it's own
investigation. That is not practicable under
taking for the schools, nor does it seem necessary.
More than 200 speakers appear in the public
schools each year. 1t is wise precautlOn, in
these days especially, that anybody invited to
address teachers and, especially, school children,
should be subject to some check before being
invited to appear. The check does not neces-
sarily involve the loyalty of a speaker. 1t also
involves the propriety of what the speaker may
wish to say under the auspices of the public
schools.
1t seems to The Star that it would be ade-
intendent were empowered by the Board of Ed
ucation to select small standing committee of
school administrators whose members would
confer periodically with school principals and
others on the selection of speakers to be invited
and topics for discussion. Publicity should be
avoided in the process for it is too apt to reflect
unjustly on some individual who is under con-
sideration but whose appearance for one reason
or another is considered unwise. If such pro-
cedure were followed, 1t should be unnecessary
to consult the files of the Un-American Activities
Committee, unless some special consideration
made it advisable.
These are times when controversy is the
rule rather than the exception when suspicious
and emotions are easily aroused and when the
devout crusaders of many causes seek oppor-
tunity to do their proselytizing before
audience of school children. In this sort of
atmosphere, which the school administrators
did not create they have a difficult problem
The Superintendent of Schools, in The Stars
opinion, is being unjustly singled out to blame
responsibility for which must be shared by the
Board of Education.
Common sense and ordinary judgment
rather than arbitrary insistence on some formula
which in practice reveals its abSurditieS, ought
to be the rule The Board of Education and the
Superintendent of Schools should be able to
reach an understanding this week on how best
to handle a situation that requires more wisdom
than has been demonstrated in the recent past