Bayard Rustin's letter to University of Maryland’s Director Donald A. Deppe regarding his principled refusal to sign Maryland's Ober Act loyalty oath when invited to speak at the University of Maryland Law Enforcement Institute.
In September 1965, when the University of Maryland asked civil rights leader Bayard Rustin to sign the state's anti-subversive loyalty oath before speaking to law enforcement officers, his refusal sparked a statewide controversy that tested academic freedom in Cold War America. Governor Tawes ordered a state police investigation into Rustin's background while legislators threatened to censure the university. The crisis was resolved when President Wilson Elkins upheld the invitation, citing a 1960 attorney general's ruling that guest lecturers were exempt from loyalty oaths, but the Maryland House of Delegates still passed a resolution criticizing the university's judgment in inviting speakers with controversial backgrounds.
This episode tested the boundaries of academic freedom and civil rights advocacy, ultimately reaffirming that invited civil liberties speakers were exempt from loyalty oaths but revealing how deeply anti-Communist sentiment could threaten constitutional protections for dissenting voices.
"Bayard Rustin Speech to University of Maryland Law Enforcement Institute, and Rustin's Refusal to Take Nonsubversive Oath, 1965." Bayard Rustin Papers, Alphabetical Subject File 1965.https://login.ezproxy.princeton.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/archival-materials/bayard-rustin-speech-university-maryland-law/docview/2595020963/se-2.
