In the 1952 case Wieman v. Updegraff, the Supreme Court struck down an Oklahoma law requiring state employees to certify that they had not belonged to a “subversive organization” in the previous five years. That included college professors, then among the preferred punching bags of anti-Communist politicians.
Jonathan Marks is a professor of politics at Ursinus College and the author of ‘Let’s Be Reasonable: A Conservative Case for Liberal Education.’
