Liveright v. Joint Committee of Gen. Assem. of State of Tenn.

• Decision Date: 11 January 1968
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 4796.
• Citation: 279 F. Supp. 205
• Parties: Dr. A. A. LIVERIGHT et al., Plaintiffs, v. JOINT COMMITTEE OF the GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF the STATE OF TENNESSEE, etc., et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Tennessee

279 F. Supp. 205

Dr. A. A. LIVERIGHT et al., Plaintiffs, v. JOINT COMMITTEE OF the GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF the STATE OF TENNESSEE, etc., et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 4796.

United States District Court M. D. Tennessee, Nashville Division.

January 11, 1968.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Charles Morgan, Jr., Atlanta, Ga., I. T. Creswell, Jr., and Reber F. Boult, Jr., Nashville, Tennessee, George E. Barrett and Whitworth Stokes, Jr., Cecil D. Branstetter, Leroy J. Ellis, III, Jordan Stokes, and Charles Galbreath, Nashville, Tenn., for plaintiffs.

Dick L. Lansden and Robert McCullough, Nashville, Tenn., Thomas Fox, Asst. Atty. Gen., State of Tennessee, Nashville, Tenn., and E. Patten Webb, Memphis, Tenn., for defendants.

OPINION

WILLIAM E. MILLER, Chief Judge.

This is an action to enjoin a Joint Committee of the Tennessee General Assembly from proceeding into an investigation of allegedly subversive activities on the part of the Highlander Educational and Research Center Inc. (hereinafter referred to as the "Highlander Center.")

Although the Court, as indicated in this opinion is compelled to conclude that the plaintiffs are entitled to injunctive relief on the basis of the facts alleged in the complaint, it does not hold that the General Assembly of Tennessee lacks the power to investigate the Highlander Center in the area of alleged subversive activities. The Court merely holds that the authorizing resolution, as drafted by the General Assembly of Tennessee, is constitutionally inadequate for that purpose.

The plaintiffs are Dr. A. A. Liveright, a member of the board of directors of the Highlander Center; Dr. Charles G. Gomillion, the chairman of the board of directors of the Highlander Center; Dr. Scott Bates, the vice chairman of the Highlander Center; Myles Horton, the president of the Highlander Center; Lewis Sinclair, the secretary-treasurer and member of the board of directors of the Highlander Center; and the Highlander Center, a non-profit organization organized under the laws of the State of Tennessee, with offices in Knox County. Plaintiffs sue on behalf of the Highlander Center and as individuals.

The defendants are the Joint Committee of the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, organized and created under the authority of Joint Resolution No. 14, Gen.Sess.1967; Frank Gorrell, the Speaker of the Senate, and vested with the authority to appoint members to the committee; James Cummings, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, with authority to appoint members to the committee; Fred O. Berry, Clayton P. Elam, Odell Cas Lane, Robert Booker, and W. E. Michael, all members of the committee; Joe C. Carr, the Secretary of State; Charles Worley, the Treasurer; and John Doe, the Sergeant at Arms of the committee whose identity is unknown at this time. Defendants are sued in their individual and official capacities.

The controversy centers about Joint House Resolution No. 14 which was enacted during the 1967 term of the Tennessee Legislature. This resolution, according to its preamble, was intended to:

"provide for a committee to investigate the activities of the Highlander Research Center of Knox County and organizations affiliated therewith."

The preamble continues that "it has been reported that the Highlander Research Center * * * and persons and organizations affiliated therewith, may be involved in activities subversive to the government of our State * * *," and that a committee be formed to investigate such reports with "full power to subpoena witnesses, to take testimony, to impound records, and to do all things necessary" to discover the nature of the activities of the Highlander Center and persons and organizations affiliated with it. (Appendix)

In the body of the resolution, it is provided that the committee "shall be clothed with all the powers and authority conferred upon legislative committees by Sections 3-301 to 3-325, Tennessee Code Annotated." Several of these statutes are significant in this case. Section 3-304 provides, inter alia, that all testimony, information, and other data procured by the committee shall be filed in the office of the Secretary of State and kept therein for public inspection. Section 3-306 provides that the committee may designate a subcommittee to exercise all of its powers including the contempt power. Section 3-308 provides that a committee shall have the power to compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of papers or other evidence deemed material by subpoenas and subpoenas duces tecum. Section 3-310 sets forth the offenses constituting contempt. It provides that any person who has been served by subpoena is guilty of contempt if he: (a) wilfully fails to appear; (b) having appeared, wilfully refuses to answer any question pertinent to the matter under investigation; (c) wilfully refuses to produce any papers, documents, records, or other items of evidence, deemed to be material by any committee. Section 3-311 provides that any committee shall have the power to issue and enforce process of arrest or attachment and impose penalty for disobedience and contempt, to the same extent as courts of record. Section 3-312 provides that it shall be a criminal offense, punishable by fine and imprisonment, to commit the offenses described in 3-310. Section 3-319 provides that answers directed upon claim of the privilege against self-incrimination may not be used in evidence against the person in any criminal prosecution.

The plaintiffs contend that Joint Resolution No. 14 (hereinafter sometimes "the resolution") and statutes 3-301 to 3-325 are unconstitutional facially and as applied to plaintiffs. Primary emphasis in the complaint is given to the resolution and its alleged qualities of vagueness and overbreadth.

According to the allegations of the complaint, in 1934 the Highlander Folk School, the forerunner of the plaintiff Highlander Center, was chartered by the State of Tennessee as a general welfare corporation. Its stated purposes included adult education, the training of rural and industrial leaders, and general academic education. During the 1930's the school was primarily concerned with activities in the field of organized labor. However, following World War II, the Highlander Folk School shifted its activities from the labor field to the area of racial problems. According to the complaint, the school undertook the promotion of the participation of Negroes in the political, social, and economic life of the South. In 1959, the Tennessee Legislature ordered an investigation of the Highlander Folk School. The plaintiffs allege that the purpose of this investigation was to determine whether the school was operated on an interracial basis and whether it was engaged in civil rights activities. The plaintiffs further allege that the committee investigation focused on the interracial aspects of the organization and that the report to the legislature alleged that these interracial activities constituted subversion. Subsequently, a raid was conducted against the school by state officials and arrests were made, but no convictions were obtained. Then, either before or after this raid, the Tennessee Legislature, by resolution, directed the District Attorney General for Grundy County to institute suit for the revocation of the school's charter. The complaint in that action charged that: (1) the Highlander Folk School was operating in violation of certain compulsory segregation statutes of Tennessee; (2) lewd and immoral conduct consistently took place on the Highlander Folk School's property; (3) the Highlander Folk School had engaged in the sale of liquor without a license; (4) the Highlander Folk School had been operated for the personal profit of its president, Myles Horton. Following a trial, the Circuit Court of Grundy Court ordered the revocation of the school's charter. This decision was appealed to the Supreme Court of Tennessee and the decision was affirmed on two grounds. Highlander Folk School v. State ex rel. Sloan, 208 Tenn. 234, 345 S.W.2d 667 (1961). Although the State Supreme Court upheld the judgment of revocation on the grounds that the school had sold liquor without a license and that the school was run for the personal profit of Myles Horton, it held that the compulsory segregation laws were unconstitutional.

In 1961, as the complaint in this action alleges, the plaintiff Highlander Research and Educational Center, Inc., was chartered in Knox County, Tennessee, evidently as the successor to the Highlander Folk School. It has the same president, Myles Horton, and there is substantial continuity in the officers, directors and activities of the two schools. Affidavits have been submitted by Myles Horton, Lewis Sinclair, and Martin Luther King, Jr., stating that the Highlander Center is engaged in civil rights activities. Allegedly because of these activities, the Highlander Center has been unpopular within the community of Knox County and throughout portions of the State of Tennessee. To demonstrate this unpopularity the plaintiffs have exhibited certain newspaper articles. One paper in particular, The Watchdog, April 13, 1967, p. 1, published in Knoxville, Tennessee, described raids which had taken place against the Highlander Center:

At the Highlander's wild party which was raided by the police and sheriff's officers. sic Mixed races were present, eleven male and female. They are actually naked, nude or jaybird and many of them got away.

What about the Townsend raid on the Highlanders? There were about forty mixed races both male and female who were put under surveillance for two days. * * * About half of this crowd was taken to the Blount County Jail. * * *

The Watchdog then went on to suggest that the state legislature should not vote appropriations so long as the University of Tennessee employed professors who belonged to the Highlander Center. The complaint alleged that, as a result of the Highlander Center's...