'The Eggheads' Band Together Against The Disclaimer Affidavit
By: Ellyn Mendenhall
Tags: Red Scare, Academia, Ivy League, History, Cold War

But find little sympathy during Cold War anti-intellectualism

Cartoon depicting McCarthyism by Arthur Szyk (1949), courtesy of the Arthur Szyk Society, Wikimedia Commons.

Alfred Whitney Griswold, President of Yale University, published “Loyalty: An Issue of Academic Freedom” in the New York Times close to the inception of a battle between university educators and members of Congress over the disclaimer affidavit and loyalty oath required for student loans under the National Defense Education Act of 1958 (NDEA). The disclaimer affidavit required the signee to swear that:

“I do not believe in, and am not a member of and do not support any organization that believes in or teaches the overthrow of the United States Government by force or violence or by an illegal or unconstitutional means.”

In short, they are not a member of the Communist party. The loyalty oath, which was less contested, required the signee to,

“solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the United States of America and will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

Along with Harvard University President Nathan M. Pusey, Griswold had pulled Yale from receiving funds for the student loan program portion of the NDEA in November of 1959, one month before the article’s publication. The resulting protest among university students, professors, and administrators of the disclaimer affidavit was entirely unsuccessful.

Despite widespread protest in the field of higher education, a public that was tainted by McCarthyism and distanced from the academic community was not empathetic to their cause. The allies among the academics in the U.S. Senate, primarily Senators John F. Kennedy and Joseph S. Clark attempted twice to repeal the disclaimer affidavit but were met with opposition, including from the dwindling Joseph McCarthy supporters.

Academic elites protest

As one of the leading voices of protest, Griswold sent a copy of this article to other university presidents in advance. In a letter to Indiana University President Herman B. Wells, Griswold wrote that the article was “an attempt to explain our position in terms of history, law, and political philosophy” and hoped it would “produce a little more public understanding and sympathy for our cause.”

The article begins by connecting the opposing sides to a shared interest,

“the security and welfare of the nation and the means of strengthening both through higher education,”

and then goes on to explain why the disclaimer affidavit, in particular, is offensive to educators and students. He makes a major concession, that educators are willing to deal with the loyalty oath but have much stronger objections to the disclaimer affidavit. He points out that educators and students are the only individuals or organizations who have to sign this affidavit in order to be able to receive federal funding, and that pure anti-intellectualism has caused this distrust.

Additionally, he argues that the affidavit is ineffective, as simply signing a clause cannot create loyalty and those who are disloyal to the U.S. will find no issue in signing it anyway. He compares the disclaimer affidavit to the pledge of allegiance that Adolf Hitler required university professors to sign, which pushed many German professors into exile — often to the benefit of the United States.

In addition to correspondence between the academic elite, university presidents turned to sending telegrams and letters to their respective state’s members of Congress or straight to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Wells wrote to President Eisenhower in February of 1960, expressing the hope of the Faculty Council of Indiana University that,

“your administration will continue to support legislation eliminating the objectionable disclaimer affidavit.”

The methods the university presidents employed did not appeal to the general public, since they were not addressed to it. Aside from the referenced New York Times article, almost all methods to repeal the disclaimer affidavit were executed in a manner that resembled an ‘Old Boys’ Club’. The academic elite attempted to use their connections with each other and with government officials as if amending the NDEA was a favor for a friend.

Unsurprisingly, the message the university professors and presidents were trying to disseminate did not resonate much with the general public, some of which had to sign similar oaths or affidavits to be a part of labor unions. In 1960, only 18.3% of the male population aged over twenty-five had completed any college education and the female rate was even lower at 14.8%. This meant that over 80% of the population likely felt no connection, nor obligation, to academic communities at all.

Griswold’s piece harping on the need for academic freedom likely did not garner the sympathy he had hoped for. It appears that at least some university presidents were aware of this divide. In a letter to the university’s Board of Trustees, Wells noted that in Griswold’s article,

“the historical facts are especially interesting and useful to anyone trying to explain what to some may seem the ‘strange aberrations of the egg heads.’”

The Congress replies

Educators found some allies in members of Congress, most of which were also highly educated. Senator John F. Kennedy was their biggest supporter, publishing his own piece in the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Bulletin in March of 1959 and introducing bill S. 819 alongside Senator Joseph Clark. While university officials appeared to focus purely on the disclaimer affidavit, conceding the loyalty oath, S. 819 requested the repeal of both the loyalty oath and the disclaimer affidavit.

After the failure of S. 819, Kennedy introduced S. 2929 which requested the repeal of the disclaimer affidavit alone. Kennedy echoed the sentiments of Griswold’s article in defending S. 819, arguing that “no member of the Communist Party will hesitate to sign the oath and affidavit”, and in defending S. 929, stating that the disclaimer affidavit, in particular, was “unnecessary”, “ineffective”, and “discriminatory”. He, like the academics, points out that farmers, businessmen, and veterans do not have to sign any oath or affidavit in order to receive federal funds, loans, or pensions.

There was more opposition to the affidavit's repeal than there was support, and the opposition came from both Republicans and Democrats. Senator Russell Long, a Democrat, mostly pointed to the case of Alger Hiss in his arguments in support of the affidavit, such as asking

“why not put a few obstacles along life’s path for another Alger Hiss who might come along?”

Senator Gordon Allott, a Republican, notes that as a co-sponsor of the original NDEA, he will

“support scholastic freedom in this country to any degree, but I will draw a line between scholastic freedom and scholastic privilege [emphasis added].”

Senator Strom Thurmond, a conservative Southern Democrat, went as far to say,

“If a person does not love this country, and if he is not willing to take an oath to support the Constitution, I say he has no business getting a loan from the Government of the United States. Furthermore, I should like to see him detected, apprehended, and punished, because he is dangerous, and a menace to society.”

Alger Hiss testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee (1950), photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Public opinion falls far from the Ivory Tower

In public opinion, stuffy academics like Whitney Griswold and liberal Senators like Kennedy found very little support. While universities felt singled out by the disclaimer affidavit, compared to other institutions that received federal funding, the U.S. working class was reminded of similar oaths or affidavits they signed to join labor unions or the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). Often, they voiced a lack of empathy for the faraway term of ‘academic freedom’ in letters to the editor, either as a response to the university protests themselves or to an editorial supporting the repeal.

Edmund R. Schroeder, from New York, wrote to the New York Herald Tribune in support of retaining the affidavit that, “no individual or organization has either a natural or constitutional right to receive public money.”

John J. Iago, from Baltimore, wrote a scathing letter to the Baltimore Sun that asked,

“Would The Sun care to try to spell out in some specific detail just what injuries could conceivably be sustained as a consequence of the inclusion of Senator Mundt’s loyalty-oath provision in Public Law 85–864; and also indicate who could be a victim of any such injury, and how or why?”

He concluded by adding that he feels adding the oath and affidavit was “quite commendable.”

Daniel P. Moynihan, from Syracuse, New York wrote to the New York Times that the loyalty oath is “hardly more than the educators deserve” and argued that the

“preposterous notion that our failure to keep ahead of the Russians in rocket development was somehow a technological failure for which our education system was to blame” is “dangerous nonsense” that “educators willingly subscribed to.”

Ian Forman wrote with a belittling tone in the Boston Globe, stating about the loyalty oath:

“It requires a simple signature to a renewed pledge of allegiance to the Constitution, something any loyal American would do voluntarily, but might object to in order to get money.”

William Henry Chamberlin wrote in the Wall Street Journal that a

“student could make the required affirmation… and still be able to hold and advocate a very wide range of dissenting opinion. Like some of his professors who are old enough to know better, [emphasis added] he could advocate unilateral nuclear disarmament for America and its allies, one-sided retreat on every disputed issue with the Soviet Union.”

Chamberlin suggested that “crusaders for freedom” should look instead to “the experience of the individual worker who holds out against joining a union” and concluded that,

“the individuals who have been sounding off against the affidavits in the National Defense Education Act seem like Don Quixotes, charging furiously at windmills.”

An editorial in the San Bernardino County Sun, titled “The Loyalty Oath Again”, asked,

“Have American schools of higher learning slipped so far in teaching patriotism that they make mockery of an oath which primarily was designed to be uttered only by free men?”

For the vocal taxpayers, imposing the requirement that a student must swear they are essentially not a Communist before receiving federal funding appeared completely logical: if the money belongs to the government, should they not be able to impose any restriction on its use? The unpatriotic claim that several leveraged against the university protestors stems from a deeper anti-intellectualism and distrust of academics, but also from the use of the word itself as a weapon, even in the tail end of the Red Scare.

By viewing the NDEA as a method for defeating the Soviet Union in the areas of space, foreign language, mathematics, science, and technology, which is true to its original vision, the Soviets take the role of the enemy. It is then unsurprising that legislators would tack on a disclaimer affidavit that promised the recipient was not a Communist and an oath of allegiance to the United States. From the perspective of the Communist-fearing working-class or leftover McCarthy Senators, the disclaimer affidavit protects taxpayer funds from inadvertently supporting the enemy.