Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking (28 page)

There followed a few days of press hoopla. The
Spartan Daily
, to my gratification, published two pages of letters from faculty members supporting my attack on the oath requirement; then it all subsided, and with some relief I settled back into my new occupation. But somehow, in the process of clarifying my position on the loyalty oath, I had forgotten all about the fingerprinting. It was soon brought sharply back to my attention.

NOTES
FROM
JOURNAL
,
OCTOBER
10
TH

My horoscope in today’s paper says “Higher-ups may cause problems ... do not overspend ... rely more on colleagues ... p.m., enjoy social activity, relax with mate.” It turned out to be pretty accurate. The deans were after me all last week to come in for a discussion of the fingerprinting issue, but since the whole thing seems to have turned dead serious and they are holding up my paycheck, I said I would have to wait until I could get a lawyer to accompany me to the meeting. Today was kaleidoscopic: a book report which I’d been asked to give at a noon faculty luncheon, the meeting with the deans, an afternoon reception given for me by women faculty members.

Following the book report, I braced the assembled professors with a brief polemic on fingerprinting: an arbitrary, demeaning rule promulgated by the chancellor, part of a general policy of Big Brotherism, the dossier-building process through which our life histories can all be stored eventually in giant computers; was much fortified by their expressions of agreement and support.

Bob [Treuhaft, my husband, who is a lawyer] came down from Oakland and together with Novelle and Professor Rudoff we breached the deanly stronghold in the administration building, there to confront the massed deans: Dr. Hobart Burns, Academic Vice-President; Dr. James Sawrey, Dean of School of Social Sciences; Dr. Robert Sasseen, Dean of Faculty. With one accord, these worthies pronounced themselves opposed in principle to the fingerprinting requirement—they even commended me for bringing the issue to their attention.
But
, I must comply at once or leave the campus. “Then ... you mean to tell me that you support my stand, but you are firing me for refusing to be fingerprinted?” I asked in some astonishment. With one accord, they glumly nodded assent.

Novelle and Professor Rudoff pleaded the cause of my students, who would be subjected to real hardship: we were now three weeks into the semester, books had been bought, projects and assignments undertaken —some two hundred and twenty students would be faced with the prospect of losing credits for my courses, some might fail to graduate as a consequence, others would lose grants.

We proffered some face-saving compromises. Professor Rudoff proposed to invite me out for a drink and turn over my glass to a friend of his in the sheriff’s office who would lift the prints. Bob suggested that I might continue to teach, so that my students would not be penalized by loss of credits, and agree to forgo my salary until the issue had been decided in court. The deans were immovable; these higher-ups conceded they were acting on instructions from President Bunzel, who in turn was almost certainly actuated by higher-higher-ups, the trustees and possibly the chancellor. As we left, they had already begun to discuss my replacement—I learned later that the leading candidate for my job was Clinton Duffy, retired warden of San Quentin prison.

Off to the Faculty Club where two or three hundred women were gathered for the reception. I took the sponsors aside and told them what had just happened—I had been fired, I intended however to meet my class as usual the next morning, but I had no idea what to expect; would the administration try to remove me forcibly? I asked if I might make a brief statement to the gathering explaining my position on the fingerprinting issue and asking their support. The sponsors were dubious; many of the women there, they said, were not “politically aware” enough to understand these matters, there were teachers from the athletic department, from nursing and homemaking.... So, in the receiving line, as guests came up with words of welcome I confided to each one, “I’ve just been fired.” This was greeted with uneasy titters; was it some sort of unfunny joke? Finally, I prevailed upon the sponsors to let me speak to the assemblage. The response was overwhelming. Women shouted their encouragement and support—some left to prepare leaflets calling for a campuswide mobilization at my lecture, others said they would alert the press to these developments, the women’s coach came up to say she would bring along the whole football team to be bodyguards and prevent my eviction!

P.m., relaxed with mate, who agreed to stay overnight and come to class with me tomorrow to explain the legal aspects of the matter to my students.

The unexpected intransigence of the administration, their rejection of every offer of compromise, made me pause to consider my legal position. Having swallowed the oath, I had gagged on the fingerprinting. What now?

My lawyers told me I had a very strong case. My contract said nothing about fingerprinting; the law which establishes the fingerprinting requirement for teachers in the California system from grade-school level through junior college had, possibly through oversight, not been extended to include the state universities. The administration had been unable to cite any statutory basis for the requirement; the best their lawyers could come up with was a 1962 memo from the chancellor’s office to all state college presidents instructing them to continue “the existing policy” of requiring all employees to be fingerprinted. The origins of that policy had, it seems, been lost in antiquity.

I could refuse to be fingerprinted, let the university fire me, then sue for breach of contract. “You can just take a long vacation and get paid for not teaching,” I was assured. My lawyers were surprised, as I was, when I blurted out, “But I
want
to teach, I can’t bear the thought of giving it up.”

My insistence on continuing to teach (“your inexplicable attachment to your new calling” was the way one lawyer put it) made the lawyers’ task much more difficult, however, and the outcome more uncertain. It meant racing to court to find a judge willing, on the basis of affidavits alone, to sign a temporary restraining order commanding the university, pending a full-scale hearing to be held later, to reinstate me with full pay and to restore course credits for my students. They would try, they said, but were not at all confident that a judge would be willing to stick his neck out that far. If the judge refused to do anything without a full-scale hearing—and that would require at least two weeks’ notice—there would be a further period of uncertainty as to my status and that of my students.

For my own part, I was fully prepared to weather it. The four-month teaching job in San Jose was, after all, merely an unforeseen and enjoyable episode in a long and crowded life. Win or lose the court case, I should have plenty of other things to do. But what about my students, whose academic careers could be seriously disrupted while litigation meandered on? How would they react to this predicament? And my colleagues in the sociology department, many of whom I had never met? These nagging questions dominated my waking hours.

NOTES
FROM
JOURNAL
,
OCTOBER
11
TH

Today was what Novelle calls, in her soft Southern drawl, “the Da-a-a-y of Infamy.” She came over early with her trusty tape recorder (she is preserving all this for History), and accompanied by a dozen students we walked over to the lecture hall. Rumors abounded—some said there was a sign on the door posted by the administration saying “Mitford Lecture Canceled,” others warned that security police were on hand to prevent the class from assembling and to drag me off the platform. To forestall a lockout, we decided to arrive fifteen minutes early and seat ourselves with the previous class held in that hall. As we approached the building, we saw hundreds of students assembled on the lawn, some with placards reading “We Want Jessica, Not Her Fingerprints,” a forest of television equipment, swarms of reporters. We made our way through and into the classroom, which was packed to the rafters— my usual attendance of two hundred students augmented to seven or eight hundred. A cheer went up as we came in, and a young man introduced himself as Student Body president—could he make a brief statement from the platform? Yes, indeed, said I. Dean Sawrey was on hand looking most uncomfortable—might he read a brief statement from the platform? Yes, Dean Sawrey, in this classroom we defend and uphold First Amendment rights of free speech for all; anybody can have his or her say without fear of censorship.

I called the class to order at the appointed hour, and announced that we were fortunate to have several distinguished guest speakers with us today; first Rudi Leonardi, president of the Student Body. Leonardi (whom I had rather expected to take a middle-of-the-road position—possibly try to mediate my differences with the administration) came on like an avenging angel: “On behalf of students searching for new ideas on this campus, we offer support to Jessica Mitford.... This university, whose primary role is one of disseminating information to students, has resorted to academic back-stabbing....”

When the roar of applause died down, I reminded the class that we are studying The American Way, and said that our next distinguished speaker would doubtless shed some light on the American Way of College Administration—Dean Sawrey. Shaking like H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N’s aspirin leaf, Dean Sawrey (Novelle pronounces it “Sorry”!) read a six-line statement, the burden of which was that I have been removed from the faculty and am unauthorized to teach, no credits will be given for my classes, the sociology department is seeking a qualified replacement. To a crescendo of boos, and shouts of “She
is
qualified!” he hurried off the platform. “Dean Sawrey!” I called after him. “There are several hands up—it’s customary in this class to respond to students’ questions.” But he made rapidly for the exit, for which I apologized to the students, observing that there were apparently lots of questions but no answers.

Bob gave a rundown on the legal situation and the complexities of the forthcoming court battle. There followed impassioned discussion from the floor. A thirtyish student, veteran of SNCC and draft resistance: “These cases can’t be won in court alone; success depends on mass support of the students, beginning with everybody in this room!” Roars of approval. A young political activist: “What about the Angela Davis case, right here in San Jose? Doesn’t that prove something about the importance of mass movements against injustice?” A serious and usually reserved young woman who seldom speaks up in class: “The fight is up to us! We can show the administration we’re not going to be pushed around by maintaining the integrity of this class.” And so it went, until even hardboiled old me felt slightly overcome by emotion, so for the first time in my teaching career I adjourned the class early.

Following the Day of Infamy, there were these developments. After much classroom discussion I polled my students to learn their wishes—how many would transfer into alternative classes, as proposed by the administration? The overwhelming majority indicated they would refuse to transfer and would stick with me even though it meant risking their academic credits. The sociology department met and voted unanimously to defy the administration’s order to seek a replacement and to support my stand and that of my students. “We consider Jessica Mitford to be a member of the sociology department,” said their official statement. The student government announced they would invite my class to meet in the Student Union should we be locked out of our regular lecture hall. The academic council, advisory body to the university president, passed a unanimous resolution declaring that fingerprinting is “an infringement of human sensibilities” and “irrelevant to academic endeavor.” The
Spartan Daily
’s thunderous editorial denunciation of the administration for kowtowing to right-wing pressures of chancellor and trustees was echoed by the San Francisco
Chronicle
, which said the fingerprinting requirement is a “breach of ordinary freedoms” exemplifying “a preposterous timidity in the scholastic authority,” and the far-off Atlanta
Journal:
“This presumes, we suppose, the students are well-protected from unsafe ideas with fingerprints stashed away in some administrator’s file. We don’t know whether to laugh or cry.” For many days students all over the campus sported labels of my toeprints with the legend “MITFORD THUMBS HER TOES AT THE TRUSTEES.”

The administration in turn tried to cool things by announcing I had not been “fired” but merely “de-hired” (a word not in any dictionary), and President Bunzel told the press “We cannot always accommodate conscience when it conflicts with policy,” statements that became the object of editorials and general unmerciful spoofing in the
Spartan Daily
. As one
Spartan
columnist had it, positively bristling with indignation over Dr. Bunzel’s remark: “Dr. Bunzel has said that he opposes the fingerprint policy—if not in public then at least in private. As a matter of fact almost everyone does—faculty and students. I say to Dr. Bunzel you are making a fool of yourself. You are crumbling into a quagmire of lofty, conservative, status quo thought. You are afraid to take a stand ... and worst of all, you are betraying a fellow scholar who has brought to the surface a grossly superfluous policy which you know is all wrong.”

I was, I must confess, enjoying every minute of this enormously.

On the whole, I was surprised by the impassioned response of the campus to the “Finger-Flap,” as my students called it. When school had resumed that autumn, there had been the usual newspaper soundings of the campus mood across the country. According to these reports, universities had by and large subsided into the political apathy of the fifties; “student unrest” was a thing of the past. If this was true of such former strongholds of student militancy as the University of California and Columbia, surely sleepy San Jose would be the last place one would expect a rebellion of such dimensions to erupt, and the fingerprint issue an unlikely rallying point.