Pechan Has Two More

The same kind of opposition that watered down the Pennsylvania Loyalty Act is being mobilized to combat two more bills recently introduced into the Pennsylvania legislature.

One, labelled the "easy-firing bill" would automatically dismiss any teacher who refused to answer questions of legislative committees on the basis of self-incrimination. It is the product of State Senator Albert Pechan, Ford City dentist. The other would let a Committee on State Government investigate un-American activities of state employees, including teachers. Since all of Pennsylvania's major colleges get some state money, the committee could investigate them.

Both bills are in committee, where civil liberties groups are trying to bottle them up. Among them are the Committee on Christian Social Relations of the Pennsylvania Diocesses of the Episcopal Church and the Greater Philadelphia Civil Liberties Union.

In a statement on the "easy-firing bill," the ACLU said that "if, disregarding 160 years of American history, its proponents wish to rescind the privilege against self-incrimination, let them do so in an orderly, Constitutional fashion." Pechan's bill, the ACLU says, "circumvents" this privilege.