Editing McCarthyism (section)

=== Warren Court ===
Much of the undoing of McCarthyism came at the hands of the [[U.S. Supreme Court]] under Chief Justice [[Earl Warren]].<ref name= ":2" /><ref name=":3" /> As [[Richard Rovere]] wrote in his biography of Joseph McCarthy, "[T]he United States Supreme Court took judicial notice of the rents McCarthy was making in the fabric of liberty and thereupon wrote a series of decisions that have made the fabric stronger than before."{{sfn|Rovere|1959|p=264}} Two Eisenhower appointees to the court—[[Earl Warren]] (who was made Chief Justice) and [[William J. Brennan, Jr.]]—proved to be more liberal than Eisenhower had anticipated.{{sfn|Sabin|1999|p=5.}}

The [[Warren Court]] made a series of rulings that helped bring an end to the McCarthyism.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5" /><ref name=":6" />

In 1956, the Warren Court heard the case of ''[[Slochower v. Board of Education]]''. [[Harry Slochower]] was a professor at Brooklyn College who had been fired by New York City for invoking the Fifth Amendment when McCarthy's committee questioned him about his past membership in the Communist Party. The court prohibited such actions, ruling "...we must condemn the practice of imputing a sinister meaning to the exercise of a person's constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment... The privilege against self-incrimination would be reduced to a hollow mockery if its exercise could be taken as equivalent either to a confession of guilt or a conclusive presumption of perjury."{{sfn|Fried|1997|p=203}} In addition, the 1956 ''Cole v. Young'' ruling also greatly weakened the ability to discriminate in the federal civilian workforce.<ref>{{cite web|url= https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/351/536/|title= Cole v. Young 351 U.S. 536 (1956)|work= Justia|access-date= October 1, 2016|archive-date= March 27, 2019|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190327162048/https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/351/536/|url-status= live}}</ref>

Another key decision was in the 1957 case ''[[Yates v. United States]]'', in which the convictions of fourteen Communists were reversed. In Justice Black's opinion, he wrote of the original "Smith Act" trials: "The testimony of witnesses is comparatively insignificant. Guilt or innocence may turn on what Marx or Engels or someone else wrote or advocated as much as a hundred years or more ago... When the propriety of obnoxious or unfamiliar view about government is in reality made the crucial issue, ...prejudice makes conviction inevitable except in the rarest circumstances."{{sfn|Fried|1997|p=205}}

Also in 1957, the Supreme Court ruled on the case of ''[[Watkins v. United States]]'', curtailing the power of HUAC to punish uncooperative witnesses by finding them in contempt of Congress. Justice Warren wrote in the decision: "The mere summoning of a witness and compelling him to testify, against his will, about his beliefs, expressions or associations is a measure of governmental interference. And when those forced revelations concern matters that are unorthodox, unpopular, or even hateful to the general public, the reaction in the life of the witness may be disastrous."{{sfn|Fried|1997|p=207}}<ref>[https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/354/178.html full text] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180614022238/https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/354/178.html |date=June 14, 2018 }}, ''Caselaw'', Findlaw.</ref>

In its 1958 decision in ''[[Kent v. Dulles]]'', the Supreme Court halted the [[State Department]] from using the authority of its own regulations to refuse or revoke passports based on an applicant's communist beliefs or associations.{{sfn|Fried|1997|p=211}}