Anti-Party Line

"Members of the Communist Party of the United States should not be employed as teachers."

This sentence, included in one of the most significant statements on U.S. education in a decade, made big headlines last week for a report on American Education and International Tensions, published by the Educational Policies Commission* of the National Education Association.

It was the first time such a major group of U.S. educators had called for the total exclusion of Communists from teaching. The recommendation was not made without reservation: "At the same time we condemn the careless, incorrect, and unjust use of such words as 'Red' and 'Communist' to attack teachers and other persons who in point of fact are not Communists, but who merely have views different from those of their accusers. The whole spirit of free American education will be subverted unless teachers are free to think for themselves."

The commission's reasoning, and the professional eminence of the men who made the report, was sure to have a deep effect on U.S. educational policies. Yet the principle was also sure to encounter problems of enforcement. Said the New York Post: "Communist teachers conceal their affiliations. How can they be identified unless the techniques of FBI investigation . . . are imposed on the campus? How can that be done without imperiling the innocent?"

-Including Dwight D. Eisenhower, James B. Conant, William Jansen, O. C.Carmichael.

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