Ask a Manager: My new job requires me to take an oath of allegiance

[ermingarden]

(#5 at the link.)

I am a PhD student graduating this summer, and I have just signed on to a fantastic job that I am really excited about. I’m moving from the east coast to California, where I will work for the University of California with my salary paid by a federal grant.

I received my onboarding paperwork today, and along with all the normal stuff, it included an “Oath of Allegiance.” I am required to sign it in front of a witness who is “legally authorized to administer oaths.” Here’s the full text:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the State of California; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.”

Am I right in thinking this is insane? On the one hand, it doesn’t bother me that much because I can’t see it ever coming into play. I definitely don’t have the type of job where I’m likely to encounter enemies, foreign and domestic, seeking harm to the constitutions of my state or country (and if they do I’m peacing out, thanks). But I feel weird about signing something this intense, and I don’t really want to. Can they legally require this as a condition of employment?

Yep, they can require it. In fact, it looks like all California state employees are required to take that oath, and all federal employees have one too.

Comments

[liv]

This is a really good point: if you are going to do background checks you have to be willing to enforce them when they come up positive. If someone has a past conviction involving harm to children, they certainly can't do a role that involves contact with children. But if someone has a basically irrelevant criminal record (which might be about a crime they actually committed, or an unjust one), then you're absolutely right that orgs shouldn't just exclude them from all possible interactions. Exist as people in the world is a great phrasing!

When I worked in a medical school we asked for background checks, which was reasonable because our students had loads of patient contact and that would obviously include kids and vulnerable adults, it's not incidental, it's very much the core point of training to be a doctor. However, what actually happened was that a new student showed up who had a past stupid firearms rap. (I'm in the UK, it's illegal to use an unlicensed airgun to shoot squirrels, it's a very different legal context from having a constitutional right to mess around with all kinds of guns.)

Outcome: total meltdown. The fact that someone as a teenager had done something stupid and illegal didn't in any way make him unsuitable to be a doctor in his 30s. But the school were unconsciously assuming that the sort of people who apply to medical school are nice middle-class teenagers who don't get mixed up in that sort of thing, and when someone was admitted who didn't fit that profile, it turned out we had no procedure in place to handle it. Which was of no help in protecting anyone from potentially abusive doctors, and had a big chilling effect in blocking people from even applying to med school.