PHOENIX — An author is no longer teaching at Phoenix College after quitting over the state's longstanding requirement for public employees to sign a loyalty oath.
Former adjunct faculty member James Sallis said said the oath is a violation of his privacy and civil rights, and asks him to violate the constitution, KPNX-TV reported.
Arizona law says state, county and local public employees can be fired if they refuse to sign an oath pledging loyalty to the state and country.
"I never imagined that things like this were still around. It horrified me," he said.
Sallis wrote the book 'Drive,' which became a movie starring Ryan Gosling.
First Amendment attorney Dan Barr of Perkins Coie in Phoenix says the requirement is legal and has been around in various forms since before statehood.
He said the law was rewritten from barring membership in the Communist Party after it lost a Supreme Court challenge in the 1960s.
"Amazingly enough, yes, they can make him sign that oath," Barr said, noting that it touches a broad range of employees.
"When you have everybody employed by the state, including janitors and all sorts of people, taking the oath, it doesn't seem to make much sense," he said.
A Phoenix College spokeswoman said about 800 adjunct faculty members were asked to sign the pledge ahead of the school's accreditation renewal next year.
Interim president Chris Haines sent an email to Sallis's students, saying they should contact their state legislators or Secretary of State Michele Reagan if they're against the state's oath requirement.
"We must abide by the law," Haines said.
Student Patricia Rudnyk has signed up for Sallis's creative writing class several times.
"We signed up for that class for Jim Sallis," she said. "I don't think he can be replaced."
She said she supports her former professor.
"We fought for these rights," she said. "Don't just sign them away."
