Word: statement
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Last Wednesday the American press reported a 54-page statement by the Educational Policies Commission of the National Education Association. The statement, "American Education and International Tensions," was made by "20 of the nation's top educators." The newspaper stories shocked a few people, surprised a lot more. Among those both shocked and surprised were "20 of the nation's top educators...
When educators like President Conant and General Dwight D. Eisenhower picked up their papers that afternoon, they could hardly recognize the statement they had helped to form. The newspapers and the wire services had all done the same thing. They had lifted one sentence from page 39 of the statement and "led" with it: "Members of the Communist Party of the United States should not be employed as teachers...
Less than one of the 54 pages was devoted to this issue; but the newsmen exhausted this material before moving on to the other 53. In most cases, this meant only the briefest mention of the rest of the statement...
...Communist' to attack teachers and other persons who in point of fact are not Communists, but who merely have views different from those of their accusers." Reporters either deleted this section entirely or moved it much lower in their stories. The result, for most readers, was a simple statement that Communists should be banned from the teaching profession--top educators had come around and were finally siding with the "Little Dies" committees...
...Commission cannot afford to remain silent on the ways and means of its policy. The Commission cannot dismiss these problems with a statement deploring indiscriminate smears. There is no question of the sincerity and sober principle of President Conant and his fellow Commissioners. But on this issue they now stand with men of little principle and no discernment, men who are attempting to stifle ideas and change our constitutional guarantees of civil liberties to suit their purposes. So long as President Conant and his colleagues refuse to discuss implementation, these men will be able to say: we have...