Loyalty Oaths, Diversity Statements, and Free Speech Oaths

Loyalty Oaths

The University of Califarnia says all professors who are not foreign must sign the following loyalty oath in order to be hired by the university:

STATE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.

Back in the 1950’s there was a famous controversy about the loyalty oath of 1949, which was not quite like the present one. Italso required that professors agree not to support organizations that advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government “by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional means”, and in particular not to be a member of the Communist Party. This was struck down in 1951 by the California Supreme Court, which said that the Trustees were exceeding their power when they made professors sign a different oath than that required for state employees generally.¹ California then and now, however, has had a loyalty oath like the one above which does require allegiance to the Constitution. It is not a dead issue. Faculty were fired for refusing to sign in 2008 and 2015.

Another example of a university loyalty oath is from the University of Arizona in the figure at the top of this Substack. And it isn’t just a few states that do this. Loyalty oaths for state employees seem to be common, perhaps universal. Here’s New York’s:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the constitution of the United States of America and the constitution of the State of New York, and that I will faithfully discharge, according to the best of my ability, the duties of the position of ․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․ (title of position and name or designation of school, college, university or institution to be here inserted), to which I am now assigned.”

As a professor I often heard people talk about how bad “loyalty oath” are. I’m surprised at how “loyalty oath” is used as a term of derision when such oaths are so absolutely normal. I’ve just shown that they’re routine in two of the most liberal states in the Union, California and New York. Even the controversial old California one doesn’t seem like it should be controversial. It’s reasonable to ask professors not to help overthrow the government by force, and overthrowing governments by force was one of the goals of the Communist Party, futile though it was in the United States. A court threw it out in California on a technicality, but requiring professors not to be members of a subversive foreign organization is hardly objectionable.

Not trying to overthrow the state government by violent revolution isn’t something you look for a biology professor, but it’s a reasonable requirement. We aren’t going to hire the wrong people as science professors even if we screen out the revolutionaries.

Diversity Statements

Let’s now turn to a more recent requirement for professors. Diversity statements have often been compared with loyalty oaths, but they’re more like disloyalty oaths, a requirement that job candidates support illegal racial discrimination.² They’re not literally oaths, to be sure: they’re statements that the job candidate will write out, in his own words, a statement pledging agreement to leftwing political beliefs. A 2025 ad for a biology professor at Oberlin says:

The DEI statement is Item 4, “Statement on your teaching philosophy and expertise in diversity, equity, and inclusion.” What does that mean? The application directs you to Oberlin’s “Diversity Statement Preparation Guidelines”:

The Guidelines make it clear.

1. You must favor DEI, which is a code word for identity marxism.³

2. You not only have to favor DEI; you must have “previous or ongoing involvement” in advancing it. Being a good biologist isn’t enough.

3. You also have to have a plan for improving academia, and you have to tell the committee not just what you’ve done in the past, but how as a professor you are going to help them politically.⁴

Most emphatically, DEI statements have right and wrong answers. You will not get the job if you disagree with the search committee’s politics, or, in some cases, the politics of the university administrator who prescreens applications for political correctness. Imagine if it were 1930 and a southern university asked job candidates to write an essay on how they had supported segregation in their public and personal life? Could you give an honest answer? What if it was Germany, and the search committee wanted your thoughts on the Jewish Problem, and examples of what you’d done about it? What if it was 1967 China and candidates were asked to write an essay on Mao?

A 2018 article by Victoria Reyes in Inside Higher Education says more openly what the right answer is. From Demystifying the Diversity Statement, the first step is to “understand why it matters and why you, as a job candidate, are being asked to write one”. You need to tell the search committee how your research does the following (my boldface):

• Inform our understanding of systems of power and privilege and their interactions with groups historically underrepresented and marginalized based on identities including, but not limited to, race, ethnicity, gender, social/economic class, culture, sexual identity, ability status and religion.

• Highlight the experiences of disenfranchised populations, whose narratives have traditionally been relegated to the outer periphery of intellectual inquiry and academic scholarship, made invisible through epistemologies and research methods that privilege dominant social groups.

• Foreground the knowledge systems, assets and resources, and cultural strengths of members of historically marginalized communities in order to promote empowerment of individuals and groups from these communities.

I don’t think Professor Reyes wants any biology professors at all, actually. Her vision of the university is as a collection of government-paid activists, most of whom wouldn’t be intelligent enough to pass science courses but who had learned how to throw around marxist buzzwords and favor their own identity group.

You might think it’s easy to game DEI statements. By 2025, you could just ask ChatGPT to write you a DEI statement that would get you a job. Even ten years earlier, you could look on the web for templates and fake your beliefs. But rhe DEI people know that. Even if you fake your beliefs, that serves their purpose. Theodore Dalrymple in his 2005 interview in FrontPage says,

In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.

DEI statements are just what Dalrymple says: propaganda so outlandish that it humiliates and demoralizes those who are forced to say they believe it. Conservatives control university hiring? Black women have a harder time than white men getting an English Dept. job? Such statement are crazy. But that is the kind of thing to which you must assent. It’s not enough to listen silently, or even to sign a ridiculous petition The would-be professor must must write the propaganda with his own hand and abase himself before Power by repudiating Truth. Only then will Power know he is suitable for its purposes.

But those of us whole value the university for the advancement of knowledge, not for the advancement of politics, don’t want professors who repudiate truth. DEI statements replacedevotion to truth , and replace excellence (or even adequacy) with subservience. DEI statements are a political test, a means by which leftwing administrators screen for what they really want: subservience.

Free Speech Oaths

DEI statements are going out of style, fortunately, though the mental attitude that gave rise to them will continue to screen job candidates for political correctness. Once a university starts hiring activists insead of scholars, it’s hard to undo, since the scholars want to attend to research and the activists want to attend to gaining more power. But is there any way we can screen out activists? Loyalty oaths won’t work, because even if a job candidate hates America and will work to undermine the Constitution, he will still sign, having no scruples.⁵

I really don’t know what do do. I will diffidently suggest, however, another oath, a free speech oath. How about this?

I recognize my solemn responsibility to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation and campus and to protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it. I will not obstruct or otherwise interfere with the freedom of others to express views I reject or even loathe.⁶

This oath is taken from the Chicago Principles, modifying the wording so as to make it fit an individual professor. Most of the Principles are about university administration behavior, but this is taken from the small section on individuals.

If having to take this oath deterred a professor from taking a job at my university, because he thought the university cared about dialog and argument and didn’t like mobbing dissenters, that would be wonderful. There are people a university doesn’t want, no matter how smart they are. Someone may be a good biologist, but if he will poison the biology department with his intolerance and refusal to listen. I think that the oath’s biggest use, however, might, like the honor code oath some colleges have, be to shame people into behaving better, and in particular “to protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it”. Most faculty do favor academic freedom, but most faculty are also cowards. Reminding them of their free speech oath might be the spur needed for them to defend a colleague who is under attack.

Footnotes

1. The University of California's 1949 loyalty oath said:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of my office according to the best of my ability; that I do not believe in, and I am not a member of, nor do I support any party or organization that believes in, advocates, or teaches the overthrow of the United States Government, by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional means, that I am not a member of the Communist Party or under any oath or a party to any agreement or under any commitment that is in conflict with my obligations under this oath."

The case that struck it down was Tolman v. Underhill, Cal 2nd 39: 709 (1951). For a short history of the law of loyalty oaths (e.g. problems with vaguess, overbreadth), see Cornell’s “Amdt1.7.9.1 Loyalty Oaths”.

2. Racial discrimination in admissions and hiring has been illegal at least since the 1964 Civil Rights Act (or since 1954 for public universities, after Brown). It is one of the main features of DEI, though. “Diversity” is a code word for “Lots of people in the privileged races”. I resigned from the AAUP when they endorsed DEI statements (was it 2024), it was clear that they had lost interest in academic freedom unless it served the political interest of the Left. Or, they simply would not call suppression of free speech wrong if it was done by professors and department chairs rather than legislators. Note that the AAUP has long opposed oaths of loyalty to the government: “A faculty member’s principled refusal to sign a loyalty oath should not be a justifiablereason for not appointing a faculty member or for terminating an appointment.”

3. We all know that "Diversity-Equity-Inclusion" has a special meaning in academia, a meaning opposite to what the words mean anywhere else. In ordinary English, the words would mean the university would go out of its way to favor conservatives, fundamentalists, Islamists, monarchists, Trump supporters, Asians, and foreigners. If that were so, we'd have conservatives and Asians begging for expanded DEI programs to reduce the discrimination against them. In practice, DEI is a tool of the Left, used by those in power in universities to maintain their power.

4. Here’s advice from the University of Minnesota, in “Writing a Diversity Statement”. This calls attention to another use of the statements: it’s where you talk about your race and sexual habits and anything else the hiring committee might care about besides your teaching and research ability.

The main purposes of a diversity statement are to demonstrate how you will contribute to the diversity of the program and/or the profession, and to acknowledge your identities and views on topics like diversity, inclusion, and institutional racism. It is your opportunity to discuss what about you may be unique from other applicants. It is also an opportunity to discuss how you will genuinely contribute to creating an atmosphere of inclusion in your program, your career, and communities in general.

5. Then why did professors in the University of California get upset by the loyalty oath of 1949? I wonder if it might have been that they were members of the Communist Party, so signing could objectively have been shown to be criminal perjury. Signing an oath of allegiance to the Constitution, on the other hand, is hard to prove a perjury. Thus, the lack of opposition to the modified oath after 1951.

6. Adapted from The Chicago Principles. Here is the original wording:

As a corollary to the University’s commitment to protect and promote free expression, members of the University community must also act in conformity with the principle of free expression. Although members of the University community are free to criticizeand contest the views expressed on campus, and to criticize and contest speakers who are invited to express their views on campus, they may not obstruct or otherwise interfere with the freedom of others to express views they reject or even loathe. To this end, the University has a solemn responsibility not only to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation, but also to protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it.