Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/342/485/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 09:19:03+00:00

Document:
The Civil Service Law of New York, § 12-a, makes ineligible for employment in any public school any member of any organization advocating the overthrow of the Government by force, violence or any unlawful means. Section 3022 of the Education Law, added by the Feinberg Law, requires the Board of Regents (1) to adopt and enforce rules for the removal of any employee who violates, or is ineligible under, § 12-a, (2) to promulgate a list of organizations described in § 12-a, and (3) to provide in its rules that membership in any organization so listed is prima facie evidence of disqualification for employment in the public schools. No organization may be so listed, and no person severed from or denied employment, except after a hearing and subject to judicial review.
Held: This Court finds no constitutional infirmity in § 12-a of the Civil Service Law of New York or in § 3022 of the Education Law. Pp. 342 U. S. 486-496.
1. Section 3022 and the rules promulgated thereunder do not constitute an abridgment of the freedom of speech and assembly of persons employed or seeking employment in the public schools of New York. Garner v. Los Angeles Board, 341 U. S. 716. Pp. 342 U. S. 491-493.
2. The provision of § 3022 directing the Board of Regents to provide in rules thereunder that membership in any organization so listed by the Board shall constitute prima facie evidence of disqualification for employment in the public schools does not deny members of such organizations due process of law. Pp. 342 U. S. 494-496.
3. The use of the word "subversive" in § 1 of the Feinberg Law, which is a preamble and not a definitive part of the Act, does not render the statute void for vagueness under the Due Process Clause, in view of the fact that, in subdivision 2 of § 3022, it is given a very definite meaning -- i.e., an organization that advocates the overthrow of government by force or violence. P. 342 U. S. 496.
4. The constitutionality of § 3021 of the Education Law not having been questioned in the proceedings in the lower courts and being raised here for the first time, it will not be passed upon by this Court before the state courts have had an opportunity to pass upon it. P. 342 U. S. 496.
301 N.Y. 476, 95 N.E.2d 806, affirmed.
In a declaratory judgment action, the Supreme Court of New York, Kings County, held that subdivision (c) of § 12-a of the New York Civil Service Law, § 3022 of the New York Education Law, and the rules of the State Board of Regents promulgated thereunder violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and enjoined action thereunder by the Board of Education of New York City. 196 Misc. 873, 95 N.Y.S.2d 114. The Appellate Division reversed. 276 App.Div. 527, 96 N.Y.S.2d 466. The Court of Appeals of New York affirmed the decision of the Appellate Division. 301 N.Y. 476, 95 N.E.2d 806. On appeal to this Court, affirmed, p. 342 U. S. 496.
the so-called Feinberg Law, [Footnote 2] be declared unconstitutional, and that action by the Board of Education of the City of New York thereunder be enjoined. On motion for judgment on the pleadings, the court held that subdivision (c) of § 12-a, the Feinberg Law, and the Rules of the State Board of Regents promulgated thereunder violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and issued an injunction. 196 Misc. 873, 95 N.Y.S.2d 114. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court reversed, 276 App.Div. 527, 96 N.Y.S.2d 466, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the Appellate Division, 301 N.Y. 476, 95 N.E.2d 806. The appellants come here by appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1257.
§ 3021 of the Education Law of New York. [Footnote 5] The constitutionality of this section was not attacked in the proceedings below.
oath, agreement, pledge, or understanding to follow, advocate and teach a prescribed party line or group dogma or doctrine without regard to truth or free inquiry. This propaganda, the Legislature declared, is sufficiently subtle to escape detection in the classroom; thus, the menace of such infiltration into the classroom is difficult to measure. Finally, to protect the children from such influence, it was thought essential that the laws prohibiting members of such groups, such as the Communist Party or its affiliated organizations, from obtaining or retaining employment in the public schools be rigorously enforced. It is the purpose of the Feinberg Law to provide for the disqualification and removal of superintendents of schools, teachers, and employees in the public schools in any city or school district of the State who advocate the overthrow of the Government by unlawful means or who are members of organizations which have a like purpose.
Section 3022 of the Education Law, added by the Feinberg Law, provides that the Board of Regents, which has charge of the public school system in the State of New York, shall, after full notice and hearing, make a listing of organizations which it finds advocate, advise, teach, or embrace the doctrine that the government should be overthrown by force or violence or any other unlawful means, and that such listing may be amended and revised from time to time.
It will be observed that the listings are made only after full notice and hearing. In addition, the Court of Appeals construed the statute in conjunction with Article 78 of the New York Civil Practice Act, Gilbert-Bliss' N.Y.Civ.Prac., Vol. 6B, so as to provide listed organizations a right of review.
for appointment to or retention in any office or position in the school system"; [Footnote 6] but before one who is an employee or seeks employment is severed from or denied employment, he likewise must be given a full hearing with the privilege of being represented by counsel and the right to judicial review. [Footnote 7] It is § 1-a of the Civil Service Law, as implemented by the Feinberg Law as above indicated, that is under attack here.
freedom of speech and assembly of persons employed or seeking employment in the public schools of the State of New York.
It is clear that such persons have the right under our law to assemble, speak, think and believe as they will. Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382. It is equally clear that they have no right to work for the State in the school system on their own terms. United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75. They may work for the school system upon the reasonable terms laid down by the proper authorities of New York. If they do not choose to work on such terms, they are at liberty to retain their beliefs and associations and go elsewhere. Has the State thus deprived them of any right to free speech or assembly? We think not. Such persons are or may be denied, under the statutes in question, the privilege of working for the school system of the State of New York because, first, of their advocacy of the overthrow of the government by force or violence, or, secondly, by unexplained membership in an organization found by the school authorities, after notice and hearing, to teach and advocate the overthrow of the government by force or violence, and known by such persons to have such purpose.
to present and future trust. Both are commonly inquired into in determining fitness for both high and low positions in private industry, and are not less relevant in public employment."
341 U.S. at p. 341 U. S. 720.
We adhere to that case. A teacher works in a sensitive area in a school room. There he shapes the attitude of young minds towards the society in which they live. In this, the state has a vital concern. It must preserve the integrity of the schools. That the school authorities have the right and the duty to screen the officials, teachers, and employees as to their fitness to maintain the integrity of the schools as a part of ordered society, cannot be doubted. One's associates, past and present, as well as one's conduct, may properly be considered in determining fitness and loyalty. From time immemorial, one's reputation has been determined in part by the company he keeps. In the employment of officials and teachers of the school system, the state may very properly inquire into the company they keep, and we know of no rule, constitutional or otherwise, that prevents the state, when determining the fitness and loyalty of such persons, from considering the organizations and persons with whom they associate.
If, under the procedure set up in the New York law, a person is found to be unfit and is disqualified from employment in the public school system because of membership in a listed organization, he is not thereby denied the right of free speech and assembly. His freedom of choice between membership in the organization and employment in the school system might be limited, but not his freedom of speech or assembly, except in the remote sense that limitation is inherent in every choice. Certainly such limitation is not one the state may not make in the exercise of its police power to protect the schools from pollution and thereby to defend its own existence.
It is next argued by appellants that the provision in § 3022 directing the Board of Regents to provide in rules and regulations that membership in any organization listed by the Board after notice and hearing, with provision for review in accordance with the statute, shall constitute prima facie evidence of disqualification, denies due process, because the fact found bears no relation to the fact presumed. In other words, from the fact found that the organization was one that advocated the overthrow of government by unlawful means and that the person employed or to be employed was a member of the organization and knew of its purpose, [Footnote 8] to presume that such member is disqualified for employment is so unreasonable as to be a denial of due process of law. We do not agree.
"The law of evidence is full of presumptions either of fact or law. The former are, of course, disputable, and the strength of any inference of one fact from proof of another depends upon the generality of the experience upon which it is founded. . . ."
"Legislation providing that proof of one fact shall constitute prima facie evidence of the main fact in issue is but to enact a rule of evidence, and quite within the general power of government. Statutes, National and state, dealing with such methods of proof in both civil and criminal cases abound, and the decisions upholding them, are numerous."
Mobile, J. & K.C. R. Co. v. Turnipseed, 219 U. S. 35, at p. 219 U. S. 42.
"The statute also makes it clear that . . . proof of such membership 'shall constitute prima facie evidence of disqualification' for such employment. But, as was said in Potts v. Pardee (220 N.Y. 431, 433): "
"The presumption growing out of a prima facie case . . . remains only so long as there is no substantial evidence to the contrary. When that is offered the presumption disappears, and unless met by further proof there is nothing to justify a finding based solely upon it."
the section of the statute last cited above. In that view there here arises no question of procedural due process."
301 N.Y. 476, at p. 494, 95 N.E.2d 806, at 814-815.
Where, as here, the relation between the fact found and the presumption is clear and direct and is not conclusive, the requirements of due process are satisfied.
Without raising in the complaint or in the proceedings in the lower courts the question of the constitutionality of § 3021 of the Education Law of New York, appellants urge here for the first time that this section is unconstitutionally vague. The question is not before us. We will not pass upon the constitutionality of a state statute before the state courts have had an opportunity to do so. Asbury Hospital v. Cass County, 326 U. S. 207, 326 U. S. 213-216; Alabama State Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 450, 325 U. S. 460-462; Plymouth Coal Co. v. Pennsylvania, 232 U. S. 531, 232 U. S. 546.
It is also suggested that the use of the word "subversive" is vague and indefinite. But the word is first used in § 1 of the Feinberg Law, which is the preamble to the Act and not in a definitive part thereof. When used in subdivision 2 of § 3022, the word has a very definite meaning, namely, an organization that teaches and advocates the overthrow of government by force or violence.
N.Y.Laws 1939, c. 547, as amended N.Y.Laws 1940, c. 564.
N Y.Laws 1949, e. 360.
"No person shall be appointed to any office or position in the service of the state or of any civil division or city thereof, nor shall any person presently employed in any such office or position be continued in such employment, nor shall any person be employed in the public service as superintendents, principals or teachers in a public school or academy or in a state normal school or college, or any other state educational institution who: (a) By word of mouth or writing willfully and deliberately advocates, advises or teaches the doctrine that the government of the United States or of any state or of any political subdivision thereof should be overthrown or overturned by force, violence or any unlawful means; or"
"(b) Prints, publishes, edits, issues or sells, any book, paper, document or written or printed matter in any form containing or advocating, advising or teaching the doctrine that the government of the United States or of any state or of any political subdivision thereof should be overthrown by force, violence or any unlawful means, and who advocates, advises, teaches, or embraces the duty, necessity or propriety of adopting the doctrine contained therein;"
"(c) Organizes or helps to organize or becomes a member of any society or group of persons which teaches or advocates that the government of the United States or of any state or of any political subdivision thereof shall be overthrown by force or violence, or by any unlawful means;"
"(d) A person dismissed or declared ineligible may within four months of such dismissal or declaration of ineligibility be entitled to petition for an order to show cause signed by a justice of the supreme court, why a hearing on such charges should not be had. Until the final judgment on said hearing is entered, the order to show cause shall stay the effect of any order of dismissal or ineligibility based on the provisions of this section. The hearing shall consist of the taking of testimony in open court with opportunity for cross-examination. The burden of sustaining the validity of the order of dismissal or ineligibility by a fair preponderance of the credible evidence shall be upon the person making such dismissal or order of ineligibility."
"§ 3022. Elimination of subversive persons from the public school system"
"1. The board of regents shall adopt, promulgate, and enforce rules and regulations for the disqualification or removal of superintendents of schools, teachers or employees in the public schools in any city or school district of the state who violate the provisions of section three thousand twenty-one of this article or who are ineligible for appointment to or retention in any office or position in such public schools on any of the grounds set forth in section twelve-a of the civil service law and shall provide therein appropriate methods and procedure for the enforcement of such sections of this article and the civil service law."
"2. The board of regents shall, after inquiry, and after such notice and hearing as may be appropriate, make a listing of organizations which it finds to be subversive in that they advocate, advise, teach or embrace the doctrine that the government of the United States or of any state or of any political subdivision thereof shall be overthrown or overturned by force, violence or any unlawful means, or that they advocate, advise, teach or embrace the duty, necessity or propriety of adopting any such doctrine, as set forth in section twelve-a of the civil service law. Such listings may be amended and revised from time to time. The board, in making such inquiry, may utilize any similar listings or designations promulgated by any federal agency or authority authorized by federal law, regulation or executive order, and for the purposes of such inquiry, the board may request and receive from such federal agencies or authorities any supporting material or evidence that may be made available to it. The board of regents shall provide in the rules and regulations required by subdivision one hereof that membership in any such organization included in such listing made by it shall constitute prima facie evidence of disqualification for appointment to or retention in any office or position in the public schools of the state."
"§ 3021. Removal of superintendents, teachers and employees for treasonable or seditious acts or utterances"
"A person employed as superintendent of schools, teacher or employee in the public schools, in any city or school district of the state, shall be removed from such position for the utterance of any treasonable or seditious word or words or the doing of any treasonable or seditious act or acts while holding such position."
"§ 254. Disqualification or removal of superintendents, teachers and other employes"
"2. List of subversive organizations to be issued. Pursuant to chapter 360 of the Laws of 1949, the Board of Regents will issue a list, which may be amended and revised from time to time, of organizations which the Board finds to be subversive in that they advocate, advise, teach or embrace the doctrine that the Government of the United States, or of any state or of any political subdivision thereof, shall be overthrown or overturned by force, violence or any unlawful means, or that they advocate, advise, teach or embrace the duty, necessity or propriety of adopting any such doctrine, as set forth in section 12-a of the Civil Service Law. Evidence of membership in any organization so listed on or after the tenth day subsequent to the date of official promulgation of such list shall constitute prima facie evidence of disqualification for appointment to or retention of any office or position in the school system. Evidence of membership in such an organization prior to said day shall be presumptive evidence that membership has continued, in the absence of a showing that such membership has been terminated in good faith."
Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York (Fifth Supp.), Vol. 1, pp. 205-206.
"In all cases all rights to a fair trial, representation by counsel and appeal or court review as provided by statute or the Constitution shall be scrupulously observed."
Section 254, 1(e), Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York (Fifth Supp.), Vol. 1, p. 206.
In the proceedings below, both the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals construed the statute to require such knowledge. 276 App.Div. 527, 530, 96 N.Y.S.2d 466, 470-471; 301 N.Y. 476, 494, 95 N.E.2d 806, 814-815.
While I fully agree with the dissent of MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, the importance of this holding prompts me to add these thoughts.
teachers -- to think or say anything except what a transient majority happen to approve at the moment. Basically, these laws rest on the belief that government should supervise and limit the flow of ideas into the minds of men. The tendency of such governmental policy is to mould people into a common intellectual pattern. Quite a different governmental policy rests on the belief that government should leave the mind and spirit of man absolutely free. Such a governmental policy encourages varied intellectual outlooks in the belief that the best views will prevail. This policy of freedom is, in my judgment, embodied in the First Amendment and made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth. Because of this policy, public officials cannot be constitutionally vested with powers to select the ideas people can think about, censor the public views they can express, or choose the persons or groups people can associate with. Public officials with such powers are not public servants; they are public masters.
I dissent from the Court's judgment sustaining this law which effectively penalizes school teachers for their thoughts and their associates.
avoid constitutional adjudications on merely abstract or speculative issues and to base them on the concreteness afforded by an actual, present, defined controversy, appropriate for judicial judgment, between adversaries immediately affected by it. In accordance with the settled limits upon our jurisdiction, I would dismiss this appeal.
An understanding of the statutory scheme and the action thus far taken under it is necessary to a proper consideration of the issues which for me control disposition of the case, namely, standing of the parties and ripeness of the constitutional question.
A New York enactment of 1949 precipitated this litigation. But that legislation is tied to prior statutes. By a law of 1917, "treasonable or seditious" utterances or acts barred employment in the public schools. New York Education Law, § 3021. In 1939, a further enactment disqualified from the civil service and the educational system anyone who advocates the overthrow of government by force, violence or any unlawful means, or publishes material advocating such overthrow or organizes or joins any society advocating such doctrine. New York Civil Service Law, § 12-a. This states with sufficient accuracy the provisions of this Law, which also included detailed provisions for the hearing and review of charges.
(4) to report specially and in detail to the legislature each year on measures taken for the enforcement of these laws.
in each school district to take positive action to eliminate from the school system any teacher in whose case there is evidence that he is guilty of subversive activity. School authorities are under obligation to proceed immediately and conclusively in every such case."
The Rules and Memorandum appear in the record; we shall have occasion to refer later to their relevance to what was decided below. Our attention has also been called to an order of the Board of Education of the City of New York, the present appellee. This order further elaborates the part of the Regents' Rules dealing with reports on teachers. It is not clear whether this order has gone into effect. In any event, it was not before the lower courts, and is not in the record here.
It thus appears that we are asked to review a complicated statutory scheme prohibiting those who engage in the kind of speech or conduct that is proscribed from holding positions in the public school system. The scheme is aligned with a complex system of enforcement by administrative investigation, reporting and listing of proscribed organizations. All this must further be related to the general procedures under the New York law for hearing and reviewing charges of misconduct against educational employees, modified as those procedures may be by the Feinberg Law and the Regents' Rules.
interests, setting out the offending statutes and Rules, and concluding in a more or less argumentative fashion that these provisions violate numerous constitutional rights of the various plaintiffs; an answer, denying that the impact of the statute is unconstitutional and that the plaintiffs have any interest to support the suit. On these pleadings, summary judgment in favor of some of the plaintiffs was granted by the Supreme Court in Kings County, 196 Misc. 873, 95 N.Y.S.2d 114; this was reversed by the Appellate Division for the Second Department with direction that the complaint be dismissed, 276 App.Div. 527, 96 N.Y.S.2d 466, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the Appellate Division. 301 N.Y. 476, 95 N.E.2d 806. These pleadings and the opinions below are the basis on which we are asked to decide this case.
from other purposes for the enforcement of the provisions under review, though how much leads to the merest conjecture. But the total expenditure, certainly the new expenditure, necessary to implement the Act and Rules may well be de minimis. The plaintiffs at any rate have not attempted to show that any such expenditure would come from funds to which their taxes contribute. In short, they have neither alleged nor shown that our decision on the issues they tender would have the slightest effect on their tax bills or even on the aggregate bill of all the City's taxpayers whom they claim to represent. The high improbability of being able to make such a demonstration, in the circumstances of this case, does not dispense with the requirements for our jurisdiction. If the incidence of taxation in a city like New York bears no relation to the factors here under consideration, that is precisely why these taxpayers have no claim on our jurisdiction.
This ends the matter for plaintiffs Krieger and Newman. But six of the plaintiffs advanced grounds other than that of being taxpayers in bringing this action. Two are parents of children in New York City schools. Four are teachers in these schools. On the basis of the record before us these claims, too, are insufficient, in view of our controlling adjudications, to support the jurisdiction of this Court.
too argumentative to serve as the earthy stuff required for a legal right judicially enforceable. The claim does not approach in immediacy or directness or solidity that which our whole process of constitutional adjudication has deemed a necessary condition to the Court's settlement of constitutional issues.
An apt contrast is provided by McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203, where a parent did present an individualized claim of his own that was direct and palpable. There, the parent alleged that Illinois imposed restrictions on the child's free exercise of faith, and thereby on the parent's. The basis of jurisdiction in the McCollum case was not at all a parental right to challenge in the courts -- or at least in this Court -- educational provisions in general. The closely defined encroachment of the particular arrangement on a constitutionally protected right of the child, and of the parent's right in the child, furnished the basis for our review. The Feinberg Law puts no limits on any definable legal interest of the child or of its parents.
plaintiff whose conduct had already violated the applicable standards.
The allegations in the present action fall short of those found insufficient in the Mitchell case. These teachers do not allege that they have engaged in proscribed conduct or that they have any intention to do so. They do not suggest that they have been, or are, deterred from supporting causes or from joining organizations for fear of the Feinberg Law's interdict, except to say generally that the system complained of will have this effect on teachers as a group. They do not assert that they are threatened with action under the law, or that steps are imminent whereby they would incur the hazard of punishment for conduct innocent at the time, or under standards too vague to satisfy due process of law. They merely allege that the statutes and Rules permit such action against some teachers. Since we rightly refused in the Mitchell case to hear government employees whose conduct was much more intimately affected by the law there attacked than are the claims of plaintiffs here, this suit is wanting in the necessary basis for our review.
process of accommodation is necessarily very limited, and must be carefully circumscribed. To that end the Court, in its long history, has developed "a series of rules" carefully formulated by Mr. Justice Brandeis, "under which it has avoided passing upon a large part of all the constitutional questions pressed upon it for decision." Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U. S. 288, 297 U. S. 346.
"the distinction is one of degree, and it is for this reason that the effect of the statute in proscribing beliefs -- like its effect in restraining speech or freedom of association -- must be carefully weighed by the courts in determining whether the balance struck by [the State] comports with the dictates of the Constitution."
341 U. S. 123. The effect of the requirement that membership in a listed organization be prima facie evidence of disqualification in a dismissal proceeding is enlarged upon. 301 N.Y. at 494, 95 N.E.2d at 814-815. And the Court of Appeals indicates that only one who "knowingly holds membership in an organization named upon any listing" is subjected to the operation of that rebuttable presumption. Id. at 494, 95 N.E.2d at 814.
These are the only islands of clarity. Otherwise, we are at sea. We are not told the meaning to be attributed to the words "treasonable or seditious" in § 3021 of the Education Law, though that is one of the two sections of preexisting law which the elaborate apparatus of the Feinberg Law is designed to enforce. In light of the experience under the Sedition Act of 1798, 1 Stat. 596, "seditious" can hardly be deemed a self-defining term or a word of art. See Miller, Crisis in Freedom, 136-137. Nor can we turn to practical application or judicial construction for sufficient particularity of the meaning to be attributed to the range of activity proscribed by § 12-a. Concern over the latitude afforded by such phrases as "the overthrow of government by . . . any unlawful means" when positions of trust or public employment are conditioned upon disbelief in such an objective cannot be deemed without warrant. See American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382, 339 U. S. 415, 435; Garner v. Board of Public Works of Los Angeles, 341 U. S. 716, 341 U. S. 724. In those cases, the Court had ground for limiting the reach of a dubious formula. No such alternative is available here.
are without enlightenment, for example, on the nature of the reporting system described by the Rules. This may be a vital matter, affecting not the special circumstances of a particular case but coloring the whole scheme. For it may well be of constitutional significance whether the reporting system contemplates merely the notation as to each teacher that no evidence of disqualification has turned up, if such be the case, or whether it demands systematic and continuous surveillance and investigation of evidence. The difference cannot be meaningless, it may even be decisive, if our function is to balance the restrictions on freedom of utterance and of association against the evil to be suppressed. Again, the Rules seem to indicate that past activities of the proscribed organizations or past membership in listed organizations may be enough to bar new applicants for employment. But we do not know, nor can we determine it. This, too, may make a difference. See Garner v. Board of Public Works of Los Angeles, supra, at 341 U. S. 729 (MR. JUSTICE BURTON dissenting in part). We do not know, nor can we ascertain, the effect of the presumption of continuing membership in proscribed organizations that is drawn from evidence of past membership "in the absence of a showing that such membership has been terminated in good faith." We are uninformed of the effect in law of the Commissioner's memorandum, and there is no basis on which to appraise its effect in practice. As for the order of the Board of Education of the City of New York, it is not even formally in the case. In the face of such uncertainties, this Court has in the past found jurisdiction wanting, howsoever much the litigants were eager for constitutional pronouncements. Alabama State Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 450; Congress of Industrial Organizations v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 472; Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, 331 U. S. 549; Parker v. County of Los Angeles, 338 U. S. 327.
This statement of reasons for declining jurisdiction sounds technical, perhaps, but the principles concerned are not so. Rare departures from them are regrettable chapters in the Court's history, and, in well known instances, they caused great public misfortune.
I have not been able to accept the recent doctrine that a citizen who enters the public service can be forced to sacrifice his civil rights. * I cannot, for example, find in our constitutional scheme the power of a state to place its employees in the category of second-class citizens by denying them freedom of thought and expression. The Constitution guarantees freedom of thought and expression to everyone in our society. All are entitled to it, and none needs it more than the teacher.
The public school is, in most respects, the cradle of our democracy. The increasing role of the public school is seized upon by proponents of the type of legislation represented by New York's Feinberg law as proof of the importance and need for keeping the school free of "subversive influences." But that is to misconceive the effect of this type of legislation. Indeed, the impact of this kind of censorship on the public school system illustrates the high purpose of the First Amendment in freeing speech and thought from censorship.
clear that she may even be heard. To be sure, she may have a hearing when charges of disloyalty are leveled against her. But, in that hearing, the finding as to the "subversive" character of the organization apparently may not be reopened in order to allow her to show the truth of the matter. The irrebuttable charge that the organization is "subversive" therefore hangs as an ominous cloud over her own hearing. The mere fact of membership in the organization raises a prima facie case of her own guilt. She may, it is said, show her innocence. But innocence in this case turns on knowledge, and when the witch hunt is on, one who must rely on ignorance leans on a feeble reed.
The very threat of such a procedure is certain to raise havoc with academic freedom. Youthful indiscretions, mistaken causes, misguided enthusiasms -- all long forgotten -- become the ghosts of a harrowing present. Any organization committed to a liberal cause, any group organized to revolt against an hysterical trend, any committee launched to sponsor an unpopular program, becomes suspect. These are the organizations into which Communists often infiltrate. Their presence infects the whole, even though the project was not conceived in sin. A teacher caught in that mesh is almost certain to stand condemned. Fearing condemnation, she will tend to shrink from any association that stirs controversy. In that manner, freedom of expression will be stifled.
But that is only part of it. Once a teacher's connection with a listed organization is shown, her views become subject to scrutiny to determine whether her membership in the organization is innocent or, if she was formerly a member, whether she has bona fide abandoned her membership.
students, the parents, the community become informers. Ears are cocked for tell-tale signs of disloyalty. The prejudices of the community come into play in searching out the disloyal. This is not the usual type of supervision which checks a teacher's competency; it is a system which searches for hidden meanings in a teacher's utterances.
What was the significance of the reference of the art teacher to socialism? Why was the history teacher so openly hostile to Franco Spain? Who heard overtones of revolution in the English teacher's discussion of the Grapes of Wrath? What was behind the praise of Soviet progress in metallurgy in the chemistry class? Was it not "subversive" for the teacher to cast doubt on the wisdom of the venture in Korea?
What happens under this law is typical of what happens in a police state. Teachers are under constant surveillance; their pasts are combed for signs of disloyalty; their utterances are watched for clues to dangerous thoughts. A pall is cast over the classrooms. There can be no real academic freedom in that environment. Where suspicion fills the air and holds scholars in line for fear of their jobs, there can be no exercise of the free intellect. Supineness and dogmatism take the place of inquiry. A "party line" -- as dangerous as the "party line" of the Communists -- lays hold. It is the "party line" of the orthodox view, of the conventional thought, of the accepted approach. A problem can no longer be pursued with impunity to its edges. Fear stalks the classroom. The teacher is no longer a stimulant to adventurous thinking; she becomes instead a pipeline for safe and sound information. A deadening dogma takes the place of free inquiry. Instruction tends to become sterile; pursuit of knowledge is discouraged; discussion often leaves off where it should begin.
surveillance, with its accompanying reports and trials, cannot go hand in hand with academic freedom. It produces standardized thought, not the pursuit of truth. Yet it was the pursuit of truth which the First Amendment was designed to protect. A system which directly or inevitably has that effect is alien to our system, and should be struck down. Its survival is a real threat to our way of life. We need be bold and adventuresome in our thinking to survive. A school system producing students trained as robots threatens to rob a generation of the versatility that has been perhaps our greatest distinction. The Framers knew the danger of dogmatism; they also knew the strength that comes when the mind is free, when ideas may be pursued wherever they lead. We forget these teachings of the First Amendment when we sustain this law.
Of course, the school systems of the country need not become cells for Communist activities, and the classrooms need not become forums for propagandizing the Marxist creed. But the guilt of the teacher should turn on overt acts. So long as she is a law-abiding citizen, so long as her performance within the public school system meets professional standards, her private life, her political philosophy, her social creed should not be the cause of reprisals against her.
* United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75; Garner v. Board of Public Works of Los Angeles, 341 U. S. 716.

References: § 12
 § 12
 § 12
 § 12
 § 3022
 v. 
 § 3022
 § 1
 § 3022
 § 3021
 § 12
 § 3022
 § 12
 § 1257

§ 3021
 § 1
 v. 
 v. 
 § 3022
 v. 
 v. 
 § 3021
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 1
 § 3022
 § 3021
 § 12
 v. 
 v. 
 § 3021
 § 12
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.