Professors Attack Supreme Court For Decision on N.Y. Feinberg Law

Mark De Wolfe Howe '23, professor of Law, said yesterday that the decision of the Supreme Court to uphold the Feinberg Law, which enables New York to remove Communists from public school jobs, could also give Massachusetts the power to silence unpopular opinion at Harvard.

Howe and two other professors interviewed last night condemned the decision for permitting needless restriction of freedom of opinion in the classroom.

The Feinberg Law prohibits employment in New York's public school system of any person who advocates overthrow of the government by force or who is a member of any organization that preaches such a doctrine.

Law is Unwise

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History, said that although the law may be technically constitutional, it is unwise. "The guilt of the teacher should be overt," he said. "We should merely insist that she be a law-abiding citizen, that her teaching meet professional standards, and that she not mix political beliefs with her teaching. What else she does or believes is her own business."

Admitting that it is desirable to keep Communists out of education at this time, Charles R. Cherington, associate professor of Government, said that to do so by state law is to confer too much power upon the state. "It is a case of the majority bending too far to placate public opinion," he said. "The real role of the Court should be to protect minority rights, even though the minority may be a most offensive one."

Howe said "the opinion for the majority made by Justice Minton is inadequate for its failure to answer the jurisdictional points made by Justice Frankfurter in dissent." All three men praised the dissents of Justices Douglas and Black, who attacked the law as restricting freedom of speech. Howe, however, felt that Frankfurter's was the strongest from a legal viewpoint.

He warned that although the present decision applies only to an act affecting public school teachers of New York, it could easily be construed to allow states to regulate opinion in all forms of education.

Howe said that "the decision is premature, for we do not know how the Feinberg Law will be enforced, or what kind of hearings the individual suspect would be given."