Loyalty oath
In support of Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration, 100,000 school children marched to Boston Common and swore a loyalty oath administered by the mayor, "I promise as a good American citizen to do my part for the NRA.
On March 21, 1947, concerned with Soviet subversive penetration and infiltration into the United States government by American citizens who held oaths of allegiance to a foreign power during wartime, President Harry S Truman instituted a Loyalty Program by signing Executive Order 9835, also known as the "Loyalty Order."
It required loyalty oaths and background investigations on persons deemed suspect of holding party membership in organizations that advocated violent and anti-democratic programs.
Among those who left were the psychologist Erik Erikson and the classical scholar Ludwig Edelstein, both of them Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany.
One of the fired faculty members, the physics professor David Saxon, went on with his career and was appointed president of the entire University of California system in 1975, a job he held until 1983.
[6][7] Typically, a loyalty oath has wording similar to that mentioned in the U.S Supreme Court decision of Garner v. Board of Public Works:[8] I further swear (or affirm) that I do not advise, advocate or teach, and have not within the period beginning five (5) years prior to the effective date of the ordinance requiring the making of this oath or affirmation, advised, advocated or taught, the overthrow by force, violence or other unlawful means, of the Government of the United States of America or of the State of California and that I am not now and have not, within said period, been or become a member of or affiliated with any group, society, association, organization or party which advises, advocates or teaches, or has, within said period, advised, advocated or taught, the overthrow by force, violence or other unlawful means of the Government of the United States of America, or of the State of California.
In applying for property tax exemption as a veteran of World War II, ACLU lawyer Lawrence Speiser had refused to sign the loyalty oath.
October 16, 1961, Tobias Simon and Howard Dixon argued Cramp v. Board of Public Instruction before the Supreme Court.
[11] In 1962 the Court struck down the Florida requirement that teachers swear "I have not and will not lend my aid, support, advice, counsel or influence to the Communist party".
For unknown reasons, Adelphi faculty had never been required to sign the oath until 1966 when a staff member in the New York State Education Department discovered the oversight.
The last major loyalty oath case heard by the court was decided in 1972, when it upheld a requirement that State of Massachusetts employees swear to uphold and defend the Constitution and to "oppose the overthrow of the [government] by force, violence, or by any illegal or unconstitutional method".
The oath requirement predates statehood; it was successfully challenged in the 1960s over wording banning Communist Party membership and was rewritten in 2003.
[21] In the March 2008 State of Ohio presidential primary, some people might have been required to sign a loyalty oath in order to vote.
[26] During the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, the campaign of Donald Trump sometimes required all attendants at its rallies to take an oath.
It's a refreshing change to see the Likud government, which persecuted the rabbi over his call to have Arabs sign a loyalty oath, admit today that what Kahane said 20 years ago was correct.However, on October 18, prime minister Netanyahu ordered Justice minister Ya'akov Ne'eman to extend Cabinet-level debate on the bill in order to add amendments which make the loyalty oath universal to both Jewish and non-Jewish immigrants who seek citizenship.
