Baird v. State Bar of Arizona

This is one of two cases now before us from two different States in which applicants have been denied admission to practice law solely because they refused to answer questions about their personal beliefs or their affiliations with organizations that advocate certain ideas about government.1 Sharp conflicts and close divisions have arisen in this Court concerning the power of *3States to refuse to permit applicants to practice law in cases where bar examiners have been suspicious about applicants’ loyalties and their views on Communism and revolution. This has been an increasingly divisive and…