Jones Denounces Teacher Firings In Wellesley Talk

Professor Howard Mumford Jones yesterday denounced dismissals of faculty members for refusal to testify before Congressional committees.

Jones, speaking before a large audience at the Wellesley Honors Day Convocation, stated, "I cannot agree that refusal to incriminate oneself is proper ground for wrecking the professional life of a teacher."

He pointed out, that, even though a witness had refused to answer on advice of counsel, which the Congressional committee has urged him to seek, he has often suffered retribution for not having answered.

"The situation thus developed by administrators inevitably puts a premium upon the informer and penalizes him who does not believe it right to endanger the fortunes of other persons in the profession," he said.

Jones listed three ramifications when a witness chose to use the protection of the fifth amendment.

"First, he has, so to speak, put himself into the midst of a criminal proceeding ... by the very fact that he claimed the protection of an amendment that has its primary relation to the Federal courts.

"Second, despite the legal maxim that guilt is by no means to be inferred from appealing to the amendment, popular opinion does so infer guilt, so that the witness sustains serious damage in the community.

"And in the third place, and most important matter of all, many college presidents have now taken the view that the professor's plain duty is to answer all questions, and that failure to do so is grounds for dismissal from the teaching post."

Such discharge or suspension of college professors for refusing to answer questions is a "shocking and arbitrary act," Jones concluded