The ‘Loyalty Oath’ controversy was the McCarthy-era communist witch-hunt that took place on the Berkeley campus in the late 1940’s. It began when “hundreds of University employees refused to sign a special anti-communist oath mandated by the Regents.”
Dozens of tenured faculty and staff were fired and the ensuing protests eventually spread to every campus and garnered international attention.
The California Supreme Court struck down the ‘loyalty oath’ in 1952 and all the the terminated employees were reinstated.
The collection includes 3,500 pages of searchable text, 20 images and 15 audio clips
The book on the subject is The California Loyalty Oath Controversy by UC President Emeritus David P. Gardner who also help fund the project.
Unfortunately, we are not out of the woods yet:
“The Republican National Committee (RNC) used both signed Loyalty Oaths and spoken Loyalty Pledges as a requirement to attend certain 2004 re-election campaign speeches, a possible first in U.S. election history. During the 2004 presidential campaign, the campaign of George W. Bush routinely required all attendants at its rallies to take what some have called a “loyalty oath”. Those who refused to take the oath were not allowed to attend the rally.”
Image from an editorial cartoon in the July 7, 1949 issue of the Daily Californian