McCloskey Calls Goldberg 'Activist,' White Among Conservative Justices

Robert G. McCloskey, professor of Government, said last week that recent Supreme Court decisions indicate that Justice Byron White has aligned with the court's "judicial conservatives," while Justice Arthur Goldberg appears to be a member of the opposing "activist" wing.

McCloskey defined "judicial conservative" as a Justice who feels the Court should interfere as little as possible with the affairs of state and national governments. He said that the leading spokesman for this philosophy is former Justice Felix Frankfurter.

The activists, with whom Goldberg appears to be siding, usually favor a positive Court in checking governmental action--especially when such action threatens civil liberties, McCloskey stated. Justices Hugo Black and William O. Douglas are generally regarded as the current champions of this school.

McCloskey based his view of White and Goldberg mainly on the Court's 5-4 decision late last month in Gibson v. Florida Legislative Committee, in which Goldberg wrote the majority opinion and White dissented. The Court ruled in Gibson that Florida may not punish the Miami branch of the NAACP for refusing to produce its membership list for a legislative inquiry into communism. Such an inquiry, Goldberg held, violates the rights of free speech and association of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

In his dissent White argued that Florida's need for information on Communists outweighs the Constitutional rights involved. He was joined by Justices Harlan, Stewart, and Clark, while Justices Black, Douglas, Brennen and Warren were with Goldberg in the majority.

McCloskey cautioned that the evidence of the Gibson case is not absolutely conclusive. Either new Justice could still surprise us, he said.