Pacifist Cal State teacher gets job back CAL STATE EAST BAY

A Cal State East Bay math teacher and practicing Quaker who was fired for refusing to sign a state-required loyalty oath got her job back this week, with an apology from the university and a clarification that the oath does not require employees to take up arms in violation of their religious beliefs.

"It's the best possible outcome," said Marianne Kearney-Brown, 50, a graduate student in mathematics who was teaching a remedial class for undergraduates. "My concerns have been addressed."

As a Quaker, Kearney-Brown is committed to nonviolence and was unwilling to sign the state oath of allegiance that required her to "swear (or affirm)" that she would "support and defend" the U.S. and California constitutions "against all enemies, foreign and domestic." She tried inserting the word "nonviolently" in front of the word "support," but was told by university officials that altering the oath was unacceptable.

Kearney-Brown, a former high school math teacher, was fired Feb. 28 after six weeks on the job at the Hayward campus. She filed a grievance with the help of her union, the United Auto Workers.

In a grievance hearing Thursday conducted in a telephone conference call, an attorney for the California State University chancellor's office presented Kearney-Brown with a statement saying in part, "Signing the oath does not carry with it any obligation or requirement that public employees bear arms or otherwise engage in violence."

With that statement stapled to the loyalty oath, and a promise by the university to present the clarifying language to other new employees, Kearney-Brown said Friday that she felt comfortable signing the form and returning to work.

"We're very happy with the results," said Clara Potes-Fellow, a spokeswoman for the CSU chancellor's office. "The university would very much like her to be an employee. ... We were acting in good faith, and we wanted to resolve the situation in a positive way."

A veteran public-school teacher, Kearney-Brown said she had signed the state oath when she took teaching jobs in Sonoma and Vallejo, and each time she had crossed out "swear," circled "affirm" and inserted "nonviolently" before the word "support."

But university lawyers would not permit her to tinker with the wording, and after she filed her grievance they consulted the state attorney general's office for legal guidance.

The attorney general's office issued a letter March 4 affirming that Cal State East Bay had acted appropriately. But the agency also said that "the oath does not compel an employee to take any violent action and, in fact, requires an employee to work within the system of government to resolve problems and achieve change."

In addition, the university's statement Thursday cited a 1946 U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming that public employees need not violate their religious beliefs in their defense of the government and the Constitution.

Kearney-Brown said she initially tried to tell herself that signing the form was no big deal because it would just get stuffed in a file cabinet.

"But I thought, if I'm going to sign it, I'm going to take it seriously," she said. "All I was asking was, 'Does this oath require taking up arms?' If nonviolence is incompatible with this oath, I can't sign that. ... It was a visceral thing."

When university officials offered during Thursday's telephone conference to reinstate Kearney-Brown with back pay, she burst into tears.

"I told them, 'I would like nothing more,' but they couldn't hear me," she said. "They asked, 'Do you have an answer?' I was nodding and crying. My lawyer had to tell them yes."