Protest Vote

Harvard's President Nathan M. Pusey called it "misguided, discriminatory, superfluous, ineffective, futile." Yale's President A. Whitney Griswold forcefully agreed; so did Oberlin College's President William E. Stevenson. Object of their ire: the "disclaimer affidavit" in the loyalty provision of the federal Student Loan Program. Last week, joining at least 13 other colleges and universities, Harvard, Yale and Oberlin quit the loan program. Between them, they turned back about $476,000 in federal funds.

The loan program, one of the glories of last year's National Defense Education Act, encourages needy potential schoolteachers and superior students of science and language. This year the Government is lending $30 million to 1,365 schools (which add $1 for every $9 of U.S. money) to aid about 120,000 students. The trouble is one small clause: every borrower must not only 1) swear allegiance to the U.S., but 2) file an affidavit that he "does not believe in, and is not a member of and does not support any organization that believes in or teaches, the overthrow of the U.S. Government by force or violence or by any illegal or unconstitutional methods."

What irks the colleges is the suggestion, however unintentional, that students (specifically needy and able ones) are more suspect than other citizens, such as farmers or businessmen, who get much fatter federal subsidies, with no requirement for declaiming their loyalty. Moreover, the colleges ask, what Communist ever hesitated to sign an oath?

From the start, four schools--Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Princeton, Swarthmore --refused to join the program because of the affidavit. Later, nine more--Amherst, Antioch, Bennington, Goucher, Grinnell, Reed, Sarah Lawrence, St. John's (Maryland), Wilmington--withdrew. Others continued accepting money under protest, hoping that Congress would change the law. Last summer Massachusetts' Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy tried to repeal the loyalty clause, but his bill was rejected 49-42. Future bills also face North Carolina's Democrat Graham A. Barden ("I have been signing allegiance to America ever since I was a Boy Scout"), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. Having "bared my chest to the enemy," Barden aims to block any repeal "with every energy that is in me."

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