Armistice in California

Peace finally came last week to end the winter-long war between the regents and the faculty of the University of California over anti-Communist loyalty oaths.

From the beginning, both sides had agreed on one thing: they wanted no Communist teachers. But there agreement stopped. When the regents ordered faculty holdouts to the loyalty oath (13.5% of a teaching staff of 4,000) to sign or resign by April 30 (TIME, March 6), most of the faculty rose in arms.

As facultymen saw it, an oath under such compulsion was insulting, superfluous and meaningless to boot, because real Communists would not hesitate to sign it. Governor Earl Warren and President Robert Gordon Sproul, both ex officio members of the regents, sided with the faculty. Since professors already take the constitutional oath required of all state employees, argued Warren, they should not be singled out for another.

For weeks the wrangling went on. The faculty holdouts offered substantial compromise: while objecting to a special oath, they were ready to sign contracts stipulating that they were not Communists--with an implied invitation to the regents to fire anybody caught lying. The regents turned it down.

As the deadline drew nearer, some California professors got ready to take their cases to court; others began casting about for new jobs. Chancellor Robert M. Hutchins of the University of Chicago spoke up, urged that professors all over the country chip in 2% of their salaries to aid California colleagues until they landed new positions.

Last week, nine days before their own deadline, the regents met and reconsidered. Was the difference between the two points of view worth all the shooting? The regents decided not. By a vote of 21 to 1, they accepted the idea of a contract clause instead of the oath.

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