Keyishian v. Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York

Appellant
Harry Keyishian
Appellee
Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York
Appellant's Claim
That various New York state statutes and administrative regulations disqualifying teachers who are deemed subversive or who have belonged to subversive organizations are unconstitutional.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
Richard Lipsitz
Chief Lawyers for Appellee
Ruth V. Iles, Assistant Attorney General of New York, and John C. Crary, Jr.
Justices for the Court
Hugo Lafayette Black, William J. Brennan, Jr. (writing for the Court), William O. Douglas, Abe Fortas, Earl Warren
Justices Dissenting
Tom C. Clark, John Marshall Harlan II, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
23 January 1967
Decision
The Supreme Court struck the New York rules down, citing their vagueness.
Significance
In Keyishian, the Court upheld the principle of educational freedom and at the same time did away with the state's ability to force an individual to surrender constitutional rights as a condition of employment.
New York State first passed a law prohibiting those charged with treasonous words or acts from teaching in the public school system in 1917. In 1939, thestate passed another law that disqualified anyone who advocated violent overthrow of the government or who belonged to an organization that advocated sucha doctrine from employment in the educational system or the civil service. The 1939 law charged the State Board of Regents with drawing up procedures fordisqualification, as well as a list of "subversive" organizations, such as the Communist Party. The board was also directed to state in its regulations that membership in any of the listed organizations constituted evidence for disqualification. A 1953 amendment to the 1939 law--passed during the height ofthe McCarthy era communist witch hunts that poisoned the atmosphere of the early 1950s--extended its application to include personnel at any institutionof higher education operated by the state.
Harry Keyishian was an instructor in English at the privately owned and operated University of Buffalo in 1962 when it was merged with the publicly supported State University of New York. When he refused to comply with the state requirement that he sign a certificate stating that he was not a communist, hisone-year teaching contract was not renewed. Together with other instructorswho refused to sign, he brought an action in federal court claiming that thestate laws and regulations at issue were unconstitutional. After the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York ruled against Keyishian, heappealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Supreme Court Upholds Principle of Academic Freedom
By the time Keyishian's case went to trial, much of the paranoid hysteria about communist infiltration associated with the Cold War and Senator Joseph McCarthy's campaign to purge leftists from public life had abated. Still, the rules of the State University of New York remained on the books, and the StateBoard of Regents was determined to enforce them. Keyishian and others saw therules as an abridgement of his First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of association. More ominously, he argued, they threatened academic freedom.
Five of the nine justices of the Supreme Court agreed with him. Writing for the majority, Justice Brennan stressed:

Our Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that casta pall of orthodoxy over the classroom . . . The classroom is peculiarly the"marketplace of ideas."

But the Court chose reasons other than strictly First Amendment concerns foroverturning the New York laws. As Justice Brennan noted, regulations which affect the First Amendment must be drafted with great care and specificity. Inthe case of the New York laws at issue, the wording was vague and ambiguous and had resulted in a maze of regulation and administrative machinery that made it difficult for those affected to know when or how--or even if--they werein compliance. The rules therefore could result in a distinct "chilling effect" on those who had to guess which conduct or utterance might cost them theirjobs. An instructor might be violating the law simply by carrying a copy ofthe Communist Manifesto on the street, or by discussing in class the principles of certain abstract political doctrines. The laws carried no requirement that the teacher have a specific intent to overthrow the government or to further the goals of the prohibited organizations; mere membership was enough tocost him or her a job.
The statutes at issue were "void for vagueness," a judicial doctrine which holds that laws are unconstitutional when they are vague as to what persons fall within their scope or what conduct is forbidden. The New York rules, said Justice Brennan, violate not only First Amendment freedoms, but the guaranteeof procedural due process. After Keyishian, New York State employees were no longer required to surrender their constitutional rights in order to obtain or hang on to their jobs.
Related Cases

• DeJonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353 (1937).
  
• Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U.S. 242 (1937).
  
• Adler v. Board of Education, 342 U.S. 485 (1952).
  
• Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957).
  
• Scales v. United States, 367 U.S. 203 (1961).