Beginning with the onset of the Cold War in the years following World War II, government officials at all levels of government in the United States feared Soviet infiltration that might influence public opinion and frustrate the efforts of the United States to counter Soviet influence.
Senator Jack B. Tenney, chairman of the legislature's Committee on Un-American Activities, submitted several loyalty oath bills along with a dozen other anti-subversive proposals.
[4][3] The California State Federation of Teachers said in 1950:[4] The Levering Oath is in contradiction to the Federal Constitution since it imposes on public workers a political test for employment, deprives them of equal protection under the law as guaranteed in the 14th Amendment, and exposes them through its ambiguity to self-incrimination and perjury.Republican Governor Earl Warren initially opposed the legislation.
[2] The University's Regents fired 31 tenured professors who refused to sign the oath on grounds of academic freedom.
The 18 teachers whose dismissals were at issue needed to take the oath required by the Levering Act in order to be reinstated.
[7] The case was brought by Stanley Weigel, a Republican, later member of the national committee of the ACLU and Kennedy appointment to the federal bench.