Adler et al. v. Board of Education of the City of New York - The Feinberg Law

New York state's Feinberg Law, passed in 1949, was a product of post-World War II fears concerning the spread of Communism and "subversion." It was designed to aid in the enforcement of two earlier laws, one passed in 1917--during an earlier "Red Scare," brought on by the victory of Communism in Russia and the spread of Communist sympathies among workers in the United States--and the other in 1939.

The 1917 statute designated "the utterance of any treasonable or seditious word or words or the doing of any treasonable or seditious act" an offense for which an employee of the state's public school systems could be dismissed. As for the 1939 law, it made any person who called for the overthrow of the government by force, or who published material advocating such overthrow, or who organized or joined any society advocating such overthrown, ineligible for employment in the state's civil service or educational systems.

Under the Feinberg Law, the State Board of Regents was charged with implementing rules to govern the dismissal and ineligibility requirements of the two earlier statutes. Likewise the Board was required to identify all subversive organizations operating in the state, and to establish rules whereby membership in any such organization was grounds for disqualification or dismissal from any job in the state's public school system.

Though it applied to the state as a whole, the Feinberg Law was in fact directed toward that part of the state most likely to draw radicals: New York City. During the next several years, hundreds of teachers in the city resigned; then in 1956, the state's education commissioner issued a new order which made it possible for persons who had formerly--but not currently--been members of subversive organizations to retain their jobs. With its decision in Keyishian v. Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York (1967), the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the 1917 and 1939 laws, and in effect overruled Adler.