Teachers See Loyalty Oath Out of Place

The American Association of University Professors has denounced the practice of requiring students supported by federal grants to take loyalty oaths, an official release announced recently. Some of the grants in question have been created under the government's new National Defense Education Act.

Despite the denunciation, the University will probably continue the policy it has followed with its National Science Foundation grants, raising no formal protest, the CRIMSON unofficially learned yesterday.

"We don't like the idea of forcing people to take oaths for special reasons," Seymour E. Harris '20, president of the local chapter of the AAUP, explained yesterday. "Why is it necessary for a student to sign an affidavit just because he is borrowing money?" he asked. The Association's protest also claimed that loyalty oaths will not uncover any person who belongs to a subversive organization, since these individuals "have no scruples about signing such affidavits."

National Science Foundation grants, under federal auspices, have long required all applicants to submit a signed pledge of loyalty to be eligible for consideration, Jabez C. Street, professor of Physics, noted yesterday, and added that previous federal gifts usually were offered with the same stipulation.

"There have been no fireworks yet over the NSF program," Street observed. "It has a certain amount of sense, and its advantages outweigh its single drawback," he added.

Harris doubted that the University would "pass up the chance to gain $250,000 in loan money through the new program." He pointed out, however, that there were "protests about the loyalty pledge rising from quite a number of college faculties."