AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES 156 Ptfth AVENUE * NEW YORK 163, N
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an OCEANA PUBLICATION . AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES 156 PtFTH AVENUE * NEW YORK 163, N. Y. 42nd ANNUAL REPORT July 1, 1961 To June 30, 1962 FREEDOM THROUGH DISSENT AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION 156 Fifth Avenue New York 10, N. Y. Published for the American Civil Liberties Union by Oceana Publications, Inc. Board of Directors ChuirmullcEmest Angell Vice Chui rmen-Ralph S. Brown, Jr., Mrs. Sophia Yamall Jacobs General CounseGEdward J. Em& Osmond K. Fraenkel Secretary-Dorothy Kenyon TTewTer-B. W. Huebsch Directors Emeritus-Morris L. Ernst, John F. Finerty, John Holmes, Norman Thomas Robert Bierstedt John Paul Jones ~g~ti~gshker Robert L. Crowell Dan Lacy Walter Frank Will Maslow George Soll Lewis Galantiere Harry C. Meserve Stephen C. Vladeck Walter Gellhom Edward 0. Miller gy=g=inr: Louis M. Hacker Walter Millis August Heckscher Gerard Pie1 Howard Whiteside Frank S. Home Mrs. Harriet Pilpel Edward Bennett Williams National Committee ChuirmalcFrancis Biddle Vice-Chairmen--Pearl S. Buck, Howard F. Bums, Albert Sprague Coolidge, J. Frank Dobie, Lloyd K. Garrison, Frank P. Graham, Palmer Hoyt, Karl Memringer, Loren Miller, Morris Rubin, Lillian E. Smith Mrs. Sadie Alexander Prof. Thomas H. Eliot Dr. Millicent C. McIntosh 1. Garner Anthony Victor Fischer Dr. Alexander Meiklejohn Thurman Arnold Walter T. Fisher Sylvan Meyer Clarence E. A es James Lawrence Fly Donald R. Murphy ~BLl$d cr.wm Dr. Erich Fromm Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer Prof. Ral h F. Fuchs John B. Orr, Jr. Dr. Sarah Gibson Blanding Prof. W it ard E. Godin Bishon G. Bromlev Oxnam Catherine Drinker Bowen Prof. Mark Dew. Howe Jamei G. Patton - Prof. Julian P. Boyd Quincy Howe A. Philip Randolph Van Wyck Brooks Dr. Robert M. Hutchins EhnoRo er John Mason Brown Gerald W. Johnson Prof. A&n Schesinger, Jr. Prof. Allan K. Chalmers Dr. Mordecai W. Johnson Dr. Edward J. Sparling Dr. Robert K. Carr James Kemey - Prof. George R. Stewart Pr&%aieChahners Beniamin H. Kizer Mrs. Dorothy Tilly $lr te@mzsrBrown Leach Jose Trias-Mange- Grenville Clark Dr. Rufus E. Clement Prof. Robert S. Lynd William L. White Prof. Henry S. Commager Patrick Murphy Malin Thornton Wilder Prof. George S. Counts Prof. Robert Mathews Aubrey Williams Prof. Robert E. Cushman Prof. Wesley H. Maurer Marion A. Wright Melvyn Douglas Emil Mazey Dean Benjamin Youngdahl National Executive Staff Executiue Director-Tohn de J. Pemberton, lr- Associate Director-Alan Reitman Legal Director-Melvin L. Wulf Membership Director-Mrs. Marie M. Runyon Washington we Director-Lawrence Speiser (1101 Vermont Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. Telephone: MEtropolitan 84602) Executive Assistun~Mrs. Louise C. Floyd, Leamre Golden. Colleen Carmody, Mrs. Julie Barrows Staff Asso&t+lefFrey E. Fuller Table of Contents “FREEDOM THROUGH DISSENT" by John de J. Pemberton Jr. ........ iv FREEDOM OF BELIEF, EXPRESSION AND ASSOCIATION ........................ 1 The General Censorship Scene ................................................ 1 Books and Magazines ........................................................ 1 Motion Pictures ................................................................ 9 Radio and TV .................................................................... 11 Access to Government News and Public Records ............ 14 Academic Freedom .................................................................... 15 Religion ................................................................................... 20 Church and State: Education ........................................... 20 Church and State: The General Public ........................ 24 General Freedom of Speech and Association ................ ...... 26 Right of Movement ................................................... ....... 26 The Vote: Minority Parties and the Right to Franchise 28 The Right of Assembly in Public Facilities ................... 29 State and Local Controls .:. ........................................... 32 Congressional Action ................................................... 32 Labor .................................................................................. 38 EQUALITY BEFORE THE Lw ........................................................... 41 The Federal Scene .................................................................... 41 State and Local Action ................................................... ....... 46 General Developments .......................................................... 51 DUE PROCESS UNDER LAW ................................................................ 57 Federal Executive Departments ................................................ 57 Citizenship and Deportation ............................................ 57 Confinement of Mentally I11 ............................................ 60 Loyalty and Security ....................................................... 62 Military Justice ............................................................... 64 Wiretapping ............................................................................. 65 Illegal Police Practices ........................................................... 66 Court Proceedings .................................................................... 71 INTERNATIONAL CIVIL LIBERTIES .................................................... 77 STRUcTURE AND PERSONNEL .............................................................. 80 MEMBERSHIP AND FINAN- ......................... ............ 83 “FREEDOM THROUGH DISSENT By John de J. Pemberton, Jr. In social as well as in religious matters the prescription of an official orthodoxy is the converse of the proscription of heresy. Nine- teen sixty-two could well be remembered as the year of this truth, if we are a$ sensitive to the meaning of the Supreme Court’s judgment in the New York Regent’s prayer case as we are to the emotional reaction it occasioned. The movement toward an official or”rhocloxy (Tvith its necessary concomitant, the definition and inhibition of clissrnt as hcrcqy) has long been undenvav in the United States. Limitrd 1,~ specific constitutional pro&ions-and moving in varying clirrctinns according to the dominant attitudes in dif- frrtwt wmmnnities-it enjoyed a kind of apogee (as to social ant1 political matters) in the FTouse Committee on Un-American Activiticc. 1111osccvposures of various kinds of un-Americanisms: hnvr npcratcd ton-arc1 defining a social ideolosy of Americnnicm. Tlw w-c~~lktl text-denominational prayer for public schoolc of the K~\Y York Ikwd of Regents-which sought to enlict the simnltnnrolls atllwc~nce of Tewish, Catholic and Rot&ant clcnominntion\ ( and. fortuna&v, failed) may have marked the thtoloqiral cwmt(~rpart of the House committee’s Americanism. ActiT-c c;lqrprr\\ion of dissent and promotion of orthodoxy manifrrtcd itwlf in rwnrly every field of thP American Civil Liherticy I’nion’s c‘onc~rn and activity during the twelve months here rcportcd. Thr pwvions year’s Supreme Conrt decision holding valid tlrc “~:nminilnist-action organization” registration provisions of tlrc 19X Tntcrnal Security Act nnlcaslwd a new ronnd of acti\,it\- at the federal level to idcntifv and nroscrihe mid-twentieth wntllr\’ bwrica’s moqt hated lwretics. These in- clnd~d the invokinr: of the 1WI law to gain ncTv indictments of Communist I%%- offiwrs. prowrdin~s to rcvokc px~portc iwwd to certain of them. invwicptinn of the Partv’q pnblicntions, and efforts to enforce f?rr :lu-!,c~t-lintc7t-cri “Commiinict-front” pro- vision’: nf tlv Act. Ficht pc’rsnns. incluclin~ scvcral nc\\y7ancr and radio-T!’ men whocr~ contempt of Cnn~wc cnnviction’; for iv refusing, on grounds of conscience, to answer questions of Con- gressional committees probing Communist influence, had been held invalid this spring, were re-indicted. The same govern- mental pressure was exerted to retry officers of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, whose convictions for conspiring to sign false non-Communist affidavits under the Taft- Hartley Act had been reversed by a U.S. Court of Appeals. Mean- while, Congress reinstated, with legislative sanction, the Post Office censorship of foreign political propaganda which the President had brought to an end in 1961. An inclination to be comforted in the belief that such efforts are aimed only at the ultimate heresy of Communism is shaken by the echoes of this pattern in other directions-especially at the state and local level. Fifty-two unresolved academic freedom cases reported by the American Association of University Profes- sors this year-a 50% increase over last year-reflect the penetra- tion of heresy proscription into the heartland of our traditions of free inquiry and debate. A new wave of textbook censorship efforts has threatened to purge public school teaching of all controversy, as well as of the great ideas of world history memorialized in classical literature. Efforts in several states to introduce indoctrination courses in Americanism sought to sup- plant teaching about various political, economic and social philosoohies with a catechism in political orthodoxy. The fearful days of international crisis arising out of the disclosure of Soviet missile bases in Cuba, during which Communist speakers were barred from college camouses and student advocates of the Cuban position were egged, produce fresh evidence that national security tensions always strain traditional civil liberties guar- antees. Suppressions of dissent-of widely varying directions-occurred in a host of forms, from the denial of public facilities for meet- ings and speeches (by opponents