An oath, or a curse?

Faced with a relic of the McCarthy era on one side and, on the other, a remedial-math teacher who wouldn’t let the matter go, California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown did the sanest thing within his power. He provided written assurance that the teacher, a Quaker, would not have to bear arms as part of a loyalty oath. Now it’s up to the Legislature to do the sanest thing within its power -- move to rid the state of the oath.

Marianne Kearney-Brown was rehired at Cal State East Bay, which had fired her for refusing to sign the oath required of California state and municipal employees, in which they swear in part to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Kearney-Brown is no monger of hatred against her country; she simply wanted to add the word “nonviolently” to the oath.

But the oath itself is a silly thing to require of public employees such as city park janitors and public school teachers. Most new employees just sign it with barely a glance as part of the pile of paperwork their employment requires. If they really intended to harm the state or nation, would they hesitate to sign a piece of paper?

The Levering Oath, named for the late Republican Assemblyman Harold Levering (from Santa Monica, whose politics he wouldn’t recognize now), was adopted by the Legislature in 1950 and, two years later, passed by the voters as a constitutional amendment during a time of extraordinary fears about communism. Before, California had required a far simpler, more straightforward oath of office from public officials such as legislators and judges. Somehow, the state got along fine without demanding this extensive oath from its public employees, and it would have gotten along fine without it since.

The U.S. Supreme Court threw out part of the oath in 1967 because it unconstitutionally required signatories to give up their freedom of speech and association. That part is still in the state Constitution, but only the paragraph that withstood challenge is handed to new employees to sign.

One measure of the oath’s uselessness: Noncitizens, who make up a hefty portion of public employees in the state, are of course exempt from signing. Obviously, the oath is not crucial to getting the state’s work completed.

At a time when questions of patriotism and civil liberties are once again at the forefront of the public mind, the Levering Oath serves as a reminder that symbolic flag-waving mandates serve little use as anything other than rhetoric.