Resisting McCarthyism: To Sign or Not to Sign California's Loyalty OathOf the sixty nine professors fired nationwide for political reasons during the McCarthy Era, nearly half were from the University of California. A small band of men and women at California's Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses defied the stranglehold of McCarthyism in a refusal to sign the non communist loyalty oath required by the institution. While college professors across the nation meekly acquiesced to non communist oaths in order to keep their