COMMUNISTS: The Ism & the Law

Has an employer the right to fire an employee because of membership in the Communist Party? Last week, in a 4-3 decision, the California Supreme Court gave its answer: yes.

The decision came in the case of Mrs. Doris Brin Walker, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of California School of Jurisprudence, who quit practicing law in 1946 and got a job as a clerk in the Cutter Laboratories of Berkeley, manufacturers of antibiotics and serums. Three years later, after the management discovered that she was a Communist, she was fired.

In the legal battle that ensued, Mrs. Walker contended that she took the menial job only to be closer to her real interest in life, labor unionism. Cutter officials charged that she wanted to be in the laboratory to further the aims of Communism. A National Labor Relations Board unit and a California Superior Court ordered the laboratory to reinstate her, holding that she had actually been fired because of union activities.

Reversing the lower court, the State Supreme Court majority held that it would be against public policy to order reinstatement of Mrs. Walker. The court pointed out that under California law membership in the Communist Party is sufficient ground for dismissal of a public employee. From that point it reasoned:

“A private employer, particularly one largely engaged in supplying manufactured products to the Government, to its armed forces, and to retailers for distribution through hospitals and doctors to the public at large, should not be required by state action through its courts to retain in or restore to employment a person who would not be entitled to state employment and who is known to have dedicated herself to the service of a foreign power . . . The employer had not only the right to protect itself and its customers against the clear and present danger of continuing a Communist Party member in its employ, but also the duty to take such action as it deemed wise to preserve order in its plant and to protect its other employees . . . against the same danger and the possibility of ‘sabotage, force, violence’ . . . The courts of this country, by making such an order [to reinstate Mrs. Walker], would be but aiding toward destruction of the Government they are sworn to uphold.”

In Milwaukee last week, a divorce court was asked to decide whether a mother should have custody of her children when she intends to bring them up as Communists. Involved in the case is the family of Michael J. Ondrejka, an undercover agent for the FBI in Milwaukee Communist organizations from 1949 until last year. While he was acting his Communist role, Ondrejka says, he fell in love with and married pretty Lilly Rody, a devoted Red. Through the years he tried to lead her away from Communism, but did not tell her that he was an informer. After he violated party discipline, she sued for divorce. Although he still loves his wife and characterizes her as a “perfect mother” (“She’s every good adjective you can think of”), Ondrejka’s answer to her divorce complaint contends that she cannot raise their two daughters “properly” because of her “devotion and allegiance to the Communist Party.”