Teacher's Union Brands Barnes Bill As "Un-American' and 'Subversive'

Violent opposition by the Harvard Teachers' Union will greet Attorney-General Clarence Barnes' bill advocating the exclusion of Communists from position in Massachusetts universities and secondary schools when it comes before the current session of the state legislatures.

The Massachusetts General Court will receive the Faculty group's protest this week through a release condemning "as un-American and dictatorial all such legislation" and calling for its early defeat. The bill, which discriminates against Communists and these following a Communistic though-line, would render both schools and instructors convicted of its violation liable to a $10,000 fine, a year in prison, or both.

"The Barnes Bill, if passed, will be another step toward the political control of education, which is hateful to the American people and subversive to their concept of freedom.... It threatens the independence and originality of thought which have so long been a tradition in education," assorts the HTU statement.

Bill Threatens Liberty

"It seeks to make the schools of Massachusetts another arena of semi-hysterical witch-hunting, in which say teacher who dares hold an idea of Americanism different from that of Mr. Barnes may be legally deprived of his livelihood.

"By making the schools and universities equally liable to the penalties of this law," continues the statement, "It invites a purge of every liberal educator in the state. This bill strikes at the roots of liberty of thought and expression without which any education is impossible and education in a free society inconceivable.

"We believe that this attempt to make ideas alone the subject of criminal prosecution is the boldest attempt at thought-control ever proposed in this state. It is a clear denial of our constitutional rights.

"The real danger," concludes the HTU release, "is that narrow-minded prejudice may so limit teaching that graduates of our schools will be unable to defend intelligently those principles which we all wish to preserve."