Georgia Subversives Law Makes All State Teachers Show Loyalty

National inter-party argument over the Harry Dexter White case last fall started a rolling backwash of tough anti-subversive bills in a number of state legislatures.

In Georgia existing anti-subversive legislation was beefed up considerably. Under the Sedition and Subversive Activities Act of 1953, a special Assistant Attorney General was appointed with wide power to investigate and prosecute state employees believed to be engaged in subversive activities. Also provided was a much-criticized loyalty questionnaire which all state employees are required to complete satisfactorally, under penalty of losing their jobs and/or criminal prosecution if the information they provide is either false or incriminating under state laws.

Although the Subversive Act is nominally directed against all Communists, Fascists and others seeking the overthrow of democratic government by force or violence, primary target of Georgia security officers are apparently teachers who are at state and state-aid institutions of learning and whose politics are at the far left. To date "practically every employee" of Georgia's University System has filled out a modified questionnaire, according to Harmon W. Caldwell, Chancellor of the System. He adds that approximately 20 persons who have not singed are either absent from the State on leave or are ill. "Two faculty members have refused to sign on the ground that the questionnaire is an invasion of their constitutional rights"--and have been fired or forced to resign.

From another college source comes a less matter-of-fact appraisal. "A number of professors hero are now feverishly trying to obtain positions elsewhere, and many expected to resign in the near future. Department heads and administrators also admit that it is going to be difficult to recruit new members for the faculty in the near future." The same source expresses deep anxiety over the expansion of political control if Governor Herman Talmadge makes good his threat to make public schools "private schools" in order to contravene the Supreme Court's recent anti-segregation decision.

Before passage of the Subversive Act a handful of University of Georgia faculty members submitted a list of objections to the state legislature. The result of their protest was a hastily-added provision for hearings of employees before dismissal, but no appeallate body was deemed necessary. In fact the bill clearly declares that the "holding of public office or being a public employee is a privilege, and no person has any property or right vested in him by reason of his public employment and has only such entitlements as may be conferred upon him specifically by statute."

Conviction under the Act can carry maximum penalty of $20,000 or 20 years in prison or both, as well as loss of voting privileges. Another aspect of the bill is directed at discharging all State employees whose answers to the loyalty questionnaire show "reasonable grounds" for dismissal. Execution of the questionnaire is, of course, subject to the penalities of false swearing.

After the law was passed, interest centered on the contents of the forthcoming questionnaire about which the administration was very secretive. In mid-January the Georgia Tech and Georgia University chapters of the American Association of University Professors and the Georgia Education Association together scheduled a conference with special Assistant Attorney General Lamar W. Sizemore for the express purpose of advancing suggestions for making the questionnaire as unobjectionable as possible.

But the questionnaire was evidently rushed to completion before the faculty members could influence its contents. Details were announced in the press on the very day, Feburary 2, that the special conference was held. At that time Sizemore reportedly told the faculty members that Georgia's list of suspect organizations was to be substantially like the U.S. Attorney General's list except that certain so-called fascist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, would not be included. Statewide protest attacked this omission and the Klan was put back on the list so that in final form it substantially copies the Federal list.

At the briefing sessions where questionnaires were initially distributed to University of Georgia faculty members in early March the school administration announced that no salary checks would be paid after April 1 to any faculty member who failed to fill out the questionnaire by March 24. This statement was made despite the fact that most personnel were under contract at least until the end of the year and many had permanent tenure, and despite the very short notice.

Behind the scenes, teachers explored methods of attacking the questionnaire, one section of which asked about the past and present political activities of "spouse, children, step-children, parents and brothers and sisters."

Petitions were circulated, resolutions were passed, conferences were held with school officials, contacts were made with labor unions, church groups, newspapers. Some faculty men discussed the possibility of mass refusal to fill out the questionnaire but few were willing to chance this maneuver. Questionnaire was given to testing the constitutionality of the questionnaire but the idea was discarded, both because on the face of it the questionnaire was carefully drawn and seemed quite legal, and because the cost of battling the issue up to the Supreme Court would be exorbitant. The national AAUP protested to Governor Talmadge, the Board of Regents and the President of the University of Georgia, O. C. Aderhold, that the questionnaire was unreasonable, but the governor telegrammed back that he couldn't see any objection to the questionnaire.

Employees of several state agencies were also hostile to the questionnaire, in some cases because of Klan connections. Several important administration officials made no secret of their opposition to it. Some members of the legislature announced that the questionnaire as prepared went far beyond the original intent of the legislature. Even the Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives who is a candidate for governor spoke in opposition. The Atlanta Constitution, one of the most important papers in the state, criticized the "totalitarian document."

As a result of this strong pressure Governor Talmadge, on March 22, issued an executive order which deleted the question about relatives' polities and granted a thirty-day extension to the deadline for filling out the questionnaire.

But though by executive order some of the obvious inequities of the questionnaire have been corrected, it is very questionable whether the loyalty questionnaire is either necessary or constitutional.

Since 1950 all Georgia state employees have signed the following loyalty oath:

"I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Georgia, and swear that I am not a member of the Communist party and that I have no sympathy for the doctrines of Communism and will not lend my aid, my support, my advice, my counsel nor my influence to the Communist party or to the teaching of Communism."

It would appear that since the new questionnaire was aimed at Communists in state employ they could be nailed legally under this oath and other state anti-subversive laws.

As for constitutionality, the recent Supreme Court decision in the Oklahoma Loyalty Oath case declares unconstitutional any action making membership in a lawful organization in and of itself grounds for disqualification for state employ.

And below the list of approximately 250 "suspect" organizations appended to the questionnaire it is stated quite clearly that the list "is not an allegation or an expression of opinion by the State of Georgia that the organizations listed thereon are in violation of State or Federal laws." Yet from these organizations, security officers are supposed to determine "reasonable grounds" for dismissal