In 1992 when I arrived at the University of California San Diego, after moving 2700 miles to get there, I was presented without warning with a loyalty oath that would have required me to “support and defend. . . the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies” and which affirmed that “I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation.” I refused to sign it, because freedom of thought within an academic community demands tolerance of all political beliefs, even those whose praxis would constitute a threat to the state and its institutions. I therefore could not support Article XX of the California Constitution, which restricts university employment to those who support the state. And I certainly could not truthfully affirm that I had no mental reservation to subscribing to the oath — or that I were subscribing freely, given that my student stipend depended on my signing.
The eventual solution was to launder my stipend through an external institution, so that I would not be a university employee and would not have to sign the oath. Had such a solution not been found, I would never have finished graduate school, and would have left science. (Instead, I stayed in science and eventually joined a university faculty — not one in California!)
Some years later, I was offered a teaching assistantship at this same university, but had to decline it as there was no way to accept it without signing the oath.
I contacted state legislators and journalists about the oath, but nobody seemed interested: the prevailing attitude in 1992 seemed to be “just sign it; it doesn’t mean anything.” As for the political climate on campus, the student assemblies seemed more interested in mundane matters such as parking permits.
I could not in any case have signed the oath with which I was presented in 1992, as I would have been making a false statement that I had no “mental reservation.” Had this revised, less restrictive form of 2009 existed seventeen years ago, could I have signed it; would I still have had any “mental reservation”?
Although I would have rankled at the requirement actively to uphold all of California’ laws, with some of which I disagree, in most cases I could have swallowed my personal moral and political beliefs and instead upheld the full set of laws of the state — but not without harbouring any reservation. And I certainly would not be able to uphold Article XX of the California Constitution, if I were hiring an employee, by forcing that employee to sign the oath. So the “mental reservation” language remains, for me, a sticking point.