Justice Brennan watched that program and was fascinated to see the actual person behind the name on his decision. I tracked Keyishian down and interviewed him.
![citizens against plutocracy citizens against plutocracy](https://patriceayme.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/jonestown-newsweek.jpg)
Justice Brennan ruled that the loyalty oath and other anti-subversive state statutes of that era violated First Amendment protections of academic freedom. It involved a teacher named Harry Keyishian who had been fired because he would not sign a New York State loyalty oath. Another concerned a case he had heard back in 1967.
#CITIZENS AGAINST PLUTOCRACY SERIES#
My interview with him was one of 12 episodes in that series on the Constitution. How I wish he were here now - and still on the court! That was long before the era of cyberspace and the maximum surveillance state that grows topsy-turvy with every administration. Science has done things that, as I understand it, makes it possible through these drapes and those windows to get something in here that takes down what we’re talking about.”
![citizens against plutocracy citizens against plutocracy](https://statesoftheunion.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/this-animated-map-shows-how-humans-migrated-across-the-globe.jpg)
When he mentioned that modern science might be creating “a Frankenstein,” I asked, “How so?” He looked around his chambers and replied, “The very conversation we’re now having can be overheard. He did, however, subsequently reveal that his own mother told him she had always liked his opinions when he was on the New Jersey court, but wondered now that he was on the Supreme Court, “Why can’t you do it the same way?” His answer: “We have to discharge our responsibility to enforce the rights in favor of minorities, whatever the majority reaction may be.”Īlthough a liberal, he worried about the looming size of government. He claimed that he never took personally the resentment and anger directed at him. Those decisions brought a storm of protest from across the country.