Administrative files - Minutes/Newsletters, 1964-1965.

These records, which came from the office of George Wheeler, a professor at Oglethorpe University (Atlanta, Ga.), include administrative files, correspondence, newsclippings, memoranda, and printed material. The administrative files, kept by the Georgia Conference of the AAUP, contain the Georgia Conference of the AAUP's Constitution, as well as membership lists. The minutes and newsletters announce meeting times and updates on the court case. The financial documents, including receipts, checking account registers, and statements from the Trust Company of Georgia Bank, indicate the amount of dues received by the Georgia Conference of the AAUP from the organization's members.

Correspondence is separated by the addresser or addressee and is filed in chronological order. Letters to or from George Wheeler are contained in Folders 5 through 10. They all deal directly with the loyalty oath court case. As with the rest of the collection, the majority of the correspondence is dated 1965. The AAUP letters concern collecting signatures from professors who supported the loyalty oath challenge, acknowledging membership dues, and discussing alternatives to the oath. Letters to or from Emmet Bondurant, the Georgia Conference's attorney, as well as letters from the ACLU, deal with the legal strategies and procedures. There is also correspondence from the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, the defendants of the case. Both parties were amicable and respectful of one another, as these letters indicate.

Legal documents and newspaper clippings about the court case, as well as AAUP memorandums are also included. The State of Georgia Statutes include the laws that make the loyalty oath and security questionnaire mandatory for all faculty employed by the University System of Georgia, while the legal documents detail the proceedings of the case. Newspaper clippings are either news stories or editorials about the case. The opinions from the Atlanta Journal/Constitution sided with the AAUP.

George Wheeler's personal material from Oglethorpe University rounds out the collection. Since the legal challenge to the loyalty oath and the ensuing court case occurred mostly in 1965, the bulk of the collection is dated from that year.