## Facts

- Florida created a legislative investigation committee to examine alleged Communist infiltration into organizations.
- Theodore R. Gibson, president of the Miami branch of the NAACP, was subpoenaed to produce membership records and to answer whether 14 named individuals were members.
- Gibson refused to disclose membership information, asserting First and Fourteenth Amendment freedom of association protections for the NAACP and its members.
- The committee’s record contained no claim that the NAACP or its Miami branch was a subversive organization or was Communist dominated or influenced.
- The evidence offered to link the NAACP to Communist activity was largely indirect and equivocal, relying mostly on hearsay that some of the 14 individuals had attended occasional meetings and/or were members in the past; the branch had about 1,000 members.
- The NAACP had adopted resolutions excluding Communists from membership.
- A Florida court held Gibson in criminal contempt for refusing to divulge the requested membership information; the Florida Supreme Court affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether compelling the local NAACP president to disclose membership-list information, enforced through a contempt conviction, violated rights of association protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
2. Whether the State established a convincing, substantial relation between the membership information sought and an overriding and compelling state interest in investigating Communist infiltration.

## Decision

- The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the contempt conviction (5–4).
- The Court held that, on this record, compelling disclosure of NAACP membership information violated associational rights protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
- The State failed to show a substantial connection between the Miami NAACP and Communist activities sufficient to justify the intrusion.
- Prior cases upholding compelled disclosures in Communist-related investigations were distinguished because they involved stronger showings of ties to subversive activity than the record showed here.

## Legal Principles

- When a legislative investigation intrudes on First and Fourteenth Amendment associational rights, the State must show convincingly a substantial relation between the information sought and a subject of overriding and compelling state interest.
- Before compelling disclosures that substantially intrude upon and inhibit protected association, the government must lay an adequate evidentiary foundation demonstrating a real nexus between the organization and the unlawful or improper activity under investigation.
- Organizations not shown to engage in subversive or illegal activity, and not shown to have substantial connections to such activity, retain a protected interest in private association; compelled disclosure that risks chilling membership requires strong justification.

## Conclusion

Because Florida’s proof of Communist infiltration in the Miami NAACP was speculative and largely hearsay, it did not provide the compelling, evidence-based connection required to force disclosure of membership information; the contempt conviction was therefore unconstitutional and was reversed.


Gibson v. Fla. Legislative Investigation Comm., 372 U.S. 539 (1963)