Defense Act Still Restricts Faculty For Army Course

Again this year the Department of Defense intends to maintain its right to disapprove on security grounds of teaching personnel in the Armed Forces Institution's program of correspondence courses for servicemen.

In the summer of 1953, fourteen colleges and universities throughout the country refused to sign contracts to participate in the preparation of the corresondence courses when the Department insisted upon the insertion of a clause giving itself power to reject faculty members for security reasons.

According to Major-General Harlan N. Hartness, Chief of the Armed Forces Information and Education program, the 1954 contracts, sent out to 46 educational institutions, retain the security provisions. The chief addition to the new contracts is the clarifying statement that the government is acting in the matter in explicit accordance with the Defense Appropriation Act which forbids the payment of public funds to members of the Communist party or other subversive organizations. A clause requiring all participating faculty members to file a loyalty affidavit has also been added.

More Refusals

Four of the seventeen institutions to reply thus far to the 1954 contract offer have refused to sign, presumably in protest against the security provisions. But the government is not attempting to dicate educational policy to the universities, according to Hartness. "We simply cannot have Communists or subversives in our educational programs and we cannot pay such people because of an act of Congress," Hartness said.

"I'm sure that no right-thinking American wants to pay that kind of person or have his children indoctrinated," he added. "We have an obligation to the American public and they're entitled to some consideration."

During the 1953 controversy, the government at first claimed the right to disqualify faculty personnel from participation in the courses for any cause whatsoever. Under the pressure of college protests, the Defense Department modified its stand to the extent of making security grounds the sole reason for dismissal. But fourteen of the institutions, mostly state universities, still refused to agree to the contracts, fearing government encroachment on academic freedom. The American Civil Liberties Union registered a particularly strong protest against the government's action, expressing concern "lest government control extend so far as to impose strict conformity on our national life."