Washington Nightmare

Upon the recommendation of its president, Raymond B. Allen, the board of regents of the University of Washington fired three professors because of membership in the Communist Party or Communist sympathy.

Yet the "high regard for due process" hailed by such ordinarily enlightened writers as Dorothy Thompson actually points t a very different verdict. Dr. Allen's recommendations were based on the investigation made by the faculty committee on tenure. But the investigators' recommendations disagree with Allen's in all but on case. Dr. Allen holds that membership in the Communist Party, per sc, constitutes incompetence to teach. On the basis of the same evidence, gathered in 33 meetings, the faculty committee found that in two of the three cases this was not so.

The committee report stated in reference to Professor Joseph Butterworth, "It is impossible to conceive how the mere fact of membership in the Communist Party could in any way affect the competency of a teacher of old English literature."

In the case of Philosophy Professor Herbert Phillips, the question becomes a good deal more difficult. The only place where this question could have been solved was Professor Phillips' own class room. Here the committee found that "... his practice is to warn his students of his bias and to request that they evaluate his lecture in that light."

All this points to a conclusion that should have been obvious to such sophisticated observers as Miss Thompson and Mr. Smith. Justice does not rest on due process alone. There must also be good laws and intelligent interpretations. It is obvious that the admirable use of the due process has here been used to cover up a poor interpretation of competence. Adherence to a belief does not, in itself, render a man incompetent to teach. Only when he subverts the spirit of objective inquiry to a belief does the teacher become incompetent. And that condition can only be determined by the unique evidence in each individual case.

The whole affair at Seattle has the macabre air of the trial of the knave of hearts in Alice's Wonderland. Dr. Allen invents interpretations; Miss Thompson and Mr. Smith sit in the Jury Box, busily scribbling "due process" on their slates; and the rest of the press shout "off with their heads." But while Alice's dream of the knave's trial vanished, we may find the nightmare of the University of Washington spreading to legislators and trustees all over the country.