Anti-Red Teachers Bill To Get Wording Change

State Representatives Ralph W. Sullivan and John Collins announced last night that they are revising their bill designed to purge Massachusetts' private educational institutions of subversive teachers.

Hearings on the proposed measure start on March 28 before the Education Committee of the General Court in Gardiner Auditorium of the State House.

Amendments to the present bill, H-442, which reads, "Any educational organization that knowingly employs on its faculty a member of the Communist Party, or one who teaches its doctrines of atheism, shall be ineligible for tax exemption," are still under consideration, Sullivan said.

Vagueness of Wording Attacked

The change in the proposed act will be a switch from the words "members of the Communist Party, or one who teaches its doctrines of atheism" to "anyone who advocates the overthrow of the government by force or violence," the legislator declared.

Revision of H-442 is the result of objection from the Boston chapter of the Civil Liberties Union and several other parties to the vagueness of such words as "teaching of atheistic communism" which appear in the present bill.

They also claimed that membership in the Communist Party is not synonymous with subversive activity, and that H-442 falls to distinguish between advocating communism and explaining communism.

Bill Started as Warning

Originally, Sullivan filed his bill merely as a warning to Massachusetts schools and colleges not to hire faculty members affiliated with the Communist Party. He was not insistent upon the bill's passage in the legislature.

However, recent admitted allegiance to the Soviet Union by communist leaders in France and Italy, and the persecution of religious leaders in Bulgaria and Hungary have changed Sullivan's views. He now feels that his bill is important to the security of the commonwealth and should become law.