Harry Blackmun

“ I do not dispute that the First Amendment, as reflected in the Fourteenth, prevents States from denying admission to candidates merely because of theoretical beliefs in the 'right' of revolution, but I do maintain that there is no constitutional barrier to denying admission to those who seek entry to the profession for the very purpose of doing away with the orderly processes of law, and that temperate inquiry into the character of their beliefs in this regard, which is all that is shown here, is a relevant and permissible course to that end. ”

“ The records, however, adumbrated by the representations of the responsible lawyers who appeared for the States, in my opinion belie any such inferences. They show no more than a refusal to cerify candidates who deliberately, albeit in good faith, refuse to assist the Bar-admission authorities in their 'fitness' investigations by declining fully to answer the questionnaires. ”

“ New York's range of inquiry and her area of particular interest may very well differ from Ohio's, and each may be constitutionallly permissible. Further, an answer true in 1968 may not be true at all in 1969. Time passes and changes can take place even within a few months.
Although I readily concede that the Ohio question (just as the Arizona question in Baird) could have been better phrased, the approach of the plurality for reversal to the inquiry is, I feel, somewhat unrealistic. As in Baird, and as noted above, it is not a mere question of membership present or past. ”