CALIFORNIA —It’s likely that most Californians have never heard of the Levering Act, passed by the California Legislature in 1950, but it symbolized the state’s political orientation in the post-World War II era.
As the Cold War flared, anti-communist furor was sweeping the nation, most dramatically in Wisconsin Sen. Joe McCarthy’s crusade to weed out what he said were sympathizers with and agents for the Soviet Union that had infiltrated the federal government and other institutions.
Named for the state legislator who carried it, Harold Levering, the law required all state employees to take a loyalty oath that disavowed left-wing political beliefs and was aimed specifically at University of California faculty members. In fact, 31 tenured UC professors refused to sign the required loyalty oaths and were fired.
By and by, the law was challenged in court as an unconstitutional abridgment of public employees’ rights — which, of course it was. The California State Teachers Association condemned it, rightfully, as “a political test for employment.”
For many years afterward, the UC Board of Regents declared that “no political test shall ever be considered in the appointment and promotion of any faculty member or employee.”
However, in recent years, citing a “commitment to diversity and excellence,” UC officials have told faculty recruiters that, as one directive put it, they must take “pro-active steps to seek out candidates committed to diversity, equity and inclusion.”
To enforce that policy, UC began requiring applicants for faculty employment and promotion to submit “diversity statements.” At UC Davis, for instance, tenure-track faculty applicants were told they should demonstrate “an accomplished track record … of teaching, research or service activities addressing the needs of African-American, Latino, Chicano, Hispanic and Native American students or communities” and their statements must “indicate awareness” of those communities and “the negative consequences of underutilization” and “provide a clearly articulated vision” of how their work at UC-Davis would advance diversity policies.
UC officials said the requirement would help underrepresented ethnic and racial groups achieve parity, but critics labeled it an obvious political litmus test that would compel applicants to conform to a political policy whether they agreed with it or not.
In effect, in the name of diversity UC was prohibiting diversity of thought by demanding an oath of loyalty to a designated left-leaning political policy just as the Levering Act had demanded fealty to a right-leaning political policy.
What’s questionable is not DEI, but rather UC’s insistence on requiring a signed document supporting the concept, which is truly a violation of free speech and academic freedom.
There’s nothing to prevent UC from, in its employment interviews, learning about an applicant’s history of inclusion, but that’s not a document like a loyalty oath. Moreover, reasonable people can disagree whether DEI policies are the appropriate pathway to equity or if they generate resentment that impedes equity.
This debate over UC’s rigid policy has raged for years inside the system and outside, particularly in academic journals.
Enter Donald Trump, who has declared war on “diversity, equity and inclusion” policies in academic, governmental and corporate institutions and threatened a loss of federal funds to those who maintain DEI programs.
“The requirement to submit a diversity statement may lead applicants to focus on an aspect of their candidacy that is outside their expertise or prior experience,” Katherine S. Newman, UC provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, told campus provosts in a letter.
“The regents stated that our values and commitment to our mission have not changed,” the letter continued. “We can continue to effectively serve our communities from a variety of life experiences, backgrounds, and points of view without requiring diversity statements.”
UC can and should pursue diversity in its faculty hires, not only in race or gender but also in intellectual leanings. However, ill-disguised political loyalty tests are as loathsome today as they were 75 years ago when the Levering Act was passed.
It’s beyond ironic that it took Donald Trump, who in many ways emulates Joe McCarthy’s witchhunts, to undo something that UC should never have done in the first place.
CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics. Sign up for our newsletters and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.