Academics’ Beliefs Not Barrier

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31277, 25 January 1967, Page 13

Academics’ Beliefs Not Barrier

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, January 24. The United States Supreme Court yesterday declared unconstitutional a New York State law which makes membership of the Communist Party grounds for dismissal of university lecturers and professors.

The court divided 54 along liberal conservative lines. Also declared unconstitutional by the same vote was another law which made “the utterance of any treasonable or seditious word or words or the doing of any treasonable or seditious act” grounds for dismissal from the state secondary school system. Justice William J. Brennan wrote in the majority opinion that there could be no doubt New York had a legitimate interest in protecting its edu-

cation system from subversion.

But he added, “even though the governmental purpose be legitimate and substantial, that purpose cannot be pursued by means that broadly stifle fundamental personal liberties when the end can be more narrowly achieved.” In the dissenting opinion Justice Tom Clark said the majority “has by its broadside swept away one of our most precious rights, the right of self-preservation.”