No person in the classified service shall be appointed or reduced or removed or in any way favored or discriminated against because of his political or religious opinion or affiliations. -Los Angeles County Charter, Section 41
Local governments across the United States required their employees to take loyalty oaths in the late 1940s. Here, Los Angeles city executives take the oath inside the city council chambers in 1948. Courtesy of the Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive, UCLA Library.
In the summer of 1948, a social worker named Orilla Winfield received a letter from Arthur J. Will, the superintendent of charities for Los Angeles County. It read in part:
Dear Mrs. Winfield:
You are hereby notified that effective on the 26th day of July, 1948, at 5pm, you are permanently discharged from your position in the county as a social case worker without further notice. Your discharge is based on the grounds that you have been guilty of insubordination. The specific facts constituting the grounds of insubordination are as follows:
On the 28th day of May, 1948 you were personally presented by me or my duly authorized agent with a form containing an oath and affidavit commonly known as the loyalty oath, and ordered to immediately execute the same in full, signing your name thereto and swearing or affirming to the statements therein made. You then and there refused to obey this order.
Subsequently, on the 23rd day of July, 1948 you were advised that failure to execute paragraphs A, B and C of said oath and affidavit would result in your discharge at 5pm on the 26th day of July, 1948. You have failed and refused to execute paragraphs A, B and C of said oath and affidavit within the time specified .
The letter went on to state that Winfield had ten days to request a hearing on the charges before a civil service commission. She was not the only person to receive this letter. Sixteen other county workers were fired on the same day for their refusal to sign the loyalty oath. The county's decision to require such on oath came on the heels of President Truman's Executive Order 9835, also known as the Loyalty Order, which he signed on March 22, 1947. The order was inspired by the dawn of the Cold War and the public's increasingly paranoid fears that communists would infiltrate American institutions and attempt to collaborate with the Soviet Union. A pamphlet entitled If We Remain Silent, printed by the United Defense Committee of Public Employees Against Loyalty Checks, explains what happened next:
Treading manfully in the path marked out by the President's loyalty order, the five members of the Los Angeles County's governing Board of Supervisors on April 1, 1947, played a grim April Fools jest on the rights guaranteed 20,000 county employees in the Federal Constitution and in the County Charter. Unanimously, the five supervisors directed chief Administrator Wayne Allen and County Counsel Harold Kennedy to draft legislation designed to investigate the political beliefs and affiliations of the 20,000 employees. By August 15, a recommended loyalty check was submitted to the supervisors and by August 26, the loyalty check in the form of affidavits to be sworn to by the 20,000 employees was ordered, [the] first local loyalty check in the nation.
--
--
There was an immediate public outcry against the planned check, and the battle raged throughout the winter of 1947-48. The American Civil Liberties Union and local labor unions became involved and attempted to stop the oath through the courts. Despite their protestations that the check violated the US Constitution and the Los Angeles County Charter, the county proceeded with its plans. And so, on May 5, 1948, all 20,000 Los Angeles County employees were presented with the following packet, which included a letter, an oath and an affidavit:
TO: COUNTY EMPLOYEES
FROM: LOYALTY CHECK COMMITTEE. SUBJECT: LOYALTY CHECK
By order of the Board of Supervisors of Los Angeles County dated August 26, 1947, a committee was created consisting of the Civil Service Commission, and the County Counsel. This Committee has been instructed to determine whether any county employee advocates the overthrow of the constitutional government by force or violence.
This is not a witch hunt. Each step the committee is to take is specifically outlined, and the actions of the committee are so restricted that it may not start secret activities on its own behalf.
There is transmitted an oath and affidavit (including list of organizations) which you are requested to execute before a Deputy County Clerk.
Very truly yours,
Wayne Allen
County employees protesting the loyalty check picket outside the Hall of Records in 1948. Courtesy of the Herald-Examiner Collection - Los Angeles Public Library.
The loyalty oath that employees were expected to parrot read as follows:
I {blank} do solemnly swear {or affirm} that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the State of California, against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office or employment of which I am about to enter or am now engaged SO HELP ME GOD.
Section B of the check required that country workers affirm that they had not, since 1941, been a member of any political party or organization that advocated the overthrow of the government. Section C concerned the use of aliases. But it was Section D that many considered to be blatantly illegal, intrusive, and undemocratic. County workers were required to swear:
That I have never been a member of, or directly or indirectly supported or followed, any of the hereinafter listed or
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
13/05/2026
New Adobe Premiere Color Grading Mode Accelerated on NVIDIA GPUs
Joel Pennington May 13, 2026
0 Comments
New NVIDIA RTX-accelerated features streamlin...
13/05/2026
Grass Valley announced that dB Broadcast has delivered new IP-based outside broadcast (OB) trucks for Cloudbass, featuring Grass Valley LDX 100 Series cameras a...
13/05/2026
Ikegami will exhibit the latest additions to its wide range of broadcast production cameras, control units, viewfinders and monitors on stand 5D3-1 at Broadcast...
13/05/2026
FISE, working with the founding members of the XR Sports Alliance (XRSA), Accedo, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and HBS, have collaborated to develop an immersive...
13/05/2026
Canon Unveils New EOS R6 V Full-Frame EOS Camera and RF20-50mm F4 L IS USM PZ Bu...
13/05/2026
Boston Conservatory at Berklee Honors Beth Morrison and Moses Pendleton at Comme...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Creative software developer Foundry today announced the latest developments on Nuke Stage. A purpose-built application for end-to-end virtual production and in-...
13/05/2026
A definitive portrait of one of Ireland's most influential musicians
New TV documentary airs Monday 18 May on RT One and RT Player at 9.35pm
Watch the...
13/05/2026
Agentic AI is changing the way users get work done. Following the success of OpenClaw, the community is embracing new open source agentic frameworks. The latest...
13/05/2026
Reinforcement-learning agents - AI systems that learn by trial and error - can c...
12/05/2026
Beyond the Hype: A Strategic Post-Hoc Analysis of NAB 2026 If NAB Show 2026 had an underlying theme, it was a quiet, industry-wide pivot from the high-energy sp...
12/05/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D), a Panoptec Technologies Group company, and CT Square, led by Chandresh Shah, have announced a joint venture to distribute G&D and V...
12/05/2026
With 30 days until the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Telemundo, the exclusive Spanish-language home of the tournament in the United States, has announced th...
12/05/2026
The NHL has announced the return of Stanley Pup for its third consecutive year, a 90-minute special featuring adoptable rescue dogs competing on a miniature rin...
12/05/2026
NBCUniversal presented its 2026 Upfront to advertisers at Radio City Music Hall, detailing upcoming programming across NBC, Peacock, Bravo, and Versant properti...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced funding for the Fandom and Social Connection Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Publ...
12/05/2026
TNDV and Live Media, both divisions of Live Media Group, supported live broadcast coverage around NCAA Final Four weekend in Indianapolis, including the March M...
12/05/2026
The European Football Alliance (EFA) has announced a content distribution agreement with Fubo Sports Network, the free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel ...
12/05/2026
For the first time, Spanish-speaking fans in the U.S. will have two separate tel...
12/05/2026
CP Communications led a comprehensive spectrum management initiative on behalf of Churchill Downs during Kentucky Derby week, coordinating RF assets across the ...
12/05/2026
LiveU has announced a strategic partnership with DRONERESPONDERS, a 501(c)3 non-...
12/05/2026
Open Broadcast Systems has announced that BMC TV, a specialist in IP transport of broadcast content, has selected the Open Broadcast Systems 5G Flyaway solution...
12/05/2026
NEP Europe, part of NEP Group, has announced it will deliver broadcast solutions...
12/05/2026
Grass Valley has announced continued collaboration with Ravensbourne University ...
12/05/2026
Stats Perform has announced the launch of Opta Pulse, an AI-assisted video creation and distribution platform for leagues, rights holders, and broadcasters. The...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced a collaboration with Sesame Workshop to integrate Sesame Street characters into FOX Sports' FIFA World Cup 2026 programming. Conten...
12/05/2026
To date, NHL Productions has produced 19 broadcasts with commentary in American Sign Language
NHL in ASL (American Sign Language) may be just one show, but the...
12/05/2026
Google's Brian Albert: creators, athletes, highlights, nostalgia, second-scr...
12/05/2026
A still from Past Lives by Celine Song, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | p...
12/05/2026
Spotify is where fans and artists come together, turning discovery into somethin...
12/05/2026
Features patented Marco-MMC clocking technology
Black Lion Audio's latest release combines the company's expertise in clocking with their renowned p...
12/05/2026
New Track Panel, sequencer upgrades & more
Following their recent public beta release, Reason Studios have announced the full release of Reason 14. With the...
12/05/2026
One month to go! SBS reveals expansive FIFA World Cup 2026 lineup beyond the pi...
12/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz presents its advanced solutions for power electronics testing at...
12/05/2026
aconnic AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), Munich, has developed a modified fund raising p...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Tyrell Corporation, specialists in high-end live sports and entertainment broadcasts, was tasked with delivering compelling broadcast coverage of premier equest...
12/05/2026
Registration is now open for IBC2026 as the global media, entertainment and technology community prepares to converge on the RAI Amsterdam from 11 14 September ...
12/05/2026
Ross Video, a global leader in live video production technology, will present its latest innovations and integrated production workflows at BroadcastAsia 2026, ...
12/05/2026
500 selected leaders from around the world across start-ups, corporates, and venture capital. Over 50bn in assets under management among attending investors, a...
No person in the classified service shall be appointed or reduced or removed or in any way favored or discriminated against because of his political or religious opinion or affiliations. -Los Angeles County Charter, Section 41
