Word: affidavits
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...moral arguments against such an affidavit are many, but several are worth repeating. Legally, the disclaimer provides criminal penalties for a false statement on questions of belief or opinion. Far worse, any university which administers this vaguely-worded affidavit becomes an instrument of the government, enforcing an official, safe norm of belief. Although it has been suggested that Harvard accept NDEA money and provide separate scholarship funds for those students who refuse to sign the affidavit, this suggestion begs the moral question. In an NDEA loan, the University would provide one-tenth of the money and would have to administer...
...affidavit represents a shabby attempt on the part of the government to purchase loyalty. The truly loyal will be repelled and alienated by this token of their government's suspicion, while the disloyal will not balk at signing a scrap of paper...
...growing crisis in American universities--both public and private--for the past decade can deny that federal money will become more and more necessary to their survival. At the same time, no one concerned with academic freedom can fail to see the threat such aid poses. The NDEA disclaimer affidavit constitutes an unhealthy chauvinist precedent for government-university relations in this...
...That teachers and students should be singled out from all other Americans as potential traitors does not speak well for the future--a future, it should be added, when these same teachers and students will be expected to play larger and larger roles in a more complicated society. The affidavit is a symbol of hate from a hysterical past, a badge of suspicion of ideas and of men who use them. As long as it is enforced it will indicate an ugly fact--that academic freedom has become a cliche in America before it has become a reality...
...glorious leader, showing other, less powerful, less enlightened schools the way out of the wilderness of federal control. President Pusey testified several times in Washington as part of a massive effort on the part of the enlightened schools to prod Congress into repealing the disclaimer affidavit provision. Last summer was supposed to be the climax of the great crusade, but nothing happened. President Kennedy, once a strong foe of the affidavit, evidently had more pressing concerns on his mind and had forgotten. Congress never gave the matter a second thought as it renewed the entire NDEA package for two years...