Enduring oath still testing loyalties

She is now a dancer, choreographer and teacher in Southern California.

For Gonaver, the oath came up unexpectedly.

She was offered the job at Fullerton teaching two classes last fall, Introduction to American Studies and Introduction to Intercultural Women's Studies. She received two appointment letters and signed a contract. When she attended an orientation session for new faculty, she heard of the oath for the first time.

After researching the issue and learning that UC allowed its employees to provide personal statements, she submitted her own six-sentence declaration to Fullerton.

In her statement, she wrote that the oath violates the 1st Amendment and discriminates against religious pacifists, such as Quakers and Buddhists. She called the pledge an "instrument of intimidation." And she wrote that employees who sign it "while harboring legitimate religious and political objections" could be exposed to a charge of perjury.

Margaret Atwell, the Fullerton school's associate vice president for academic affairs, replied in an e-mail that Gonaver was not allowed to submit any statement, no matter what the practice at UC. Gonaver would have to sign the oath or lose the job, Atwell said.

Gonaver refused.

Potes-Fellow, the Cal State spokeswoman, said the university stands by its stricter interpretation of the requirement and is not affected by how UC or other public institutions handle the oath.

"The university concluded that state law did not allow her to attach her addendum," Potes-Fellow said.

The attorney general's statement that Kearney-Brown was allowed to attach her oath did not violate Cal State's policy because it was not an addendum, Potes-Fellow said. "We think the circumstances are different in both cases," she said.

Gonaver said the attorney general's statement does not go far enough in answering her objections to the oath. But if she had been offered a chance to use it last fall, she said, she probably would have signed the oath and would have been teaching all year at Fullerton.

Now, she would like to see the oath eliminated for all public employees except those who deal with sensitive information. She also would like an apology and a job next year.

"It makes no sense that they do this to people," she said. "It's people who take it seriously who don't get hired."

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richard.paddock@latimes.com

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The loyalty oath

From Article XX, section 3, of the California Constitution:

"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."