Gerende v. Board of Supervisors, 341 U.S. 56 (1951). In Garner, the high court rejected the loyalty oath adopted by the city of Los Angeles, California, because it required that the individual have knowledge of all the organizations which might advocate the unlawful violent overthrow of the government. Since no individual could have such knowledge, the act was overturned as vague. The Garner court had remanded the case to the district court with the requirement that the individuals be permitted to take the oath, now that the oath had been interpreted. In Adler, the Court upheld the New York legislation, because the New York courts had already interpreted the law to require that individuals have knowledge of the goals of the organization they belonged to. In Gerende, the Court upheld a Maryland statute on grounds similar to those in Adler. Justice Clark noted that the Oklahoma Supreme Court had refused to allow the applicants to take the loyalty oath even though it had interpreted the oath anew. Additionally, the appellants had petitioned that court for a rehearing that would allow them to take the oath and again, the Oklahoma Supreme Court denied the request. The act, as interpreted by the Oklahoma Supreme Court (Clark concluded) was asserting that "the fact of membership alone disqualifies. If the rule be expressed as a presumption of disloyalty, it is a conclusive one." The Oklahoma act could not withstand constitutional scrutiny in that case, Clark wrote: "But membership may be innocent. A state servant may have joined a proscribed organization unaware of its activities and purposes. In recent years, many completely loyal persons have severed organizational ties after learning for the first time of the character of groups to which they had belonged." "Indiscriminate classification of innocent with knowing activity must fall as an assertion of arbitrary power. The oath offends due process." Clark next dealt with the doctrine of privilege. (This legal doctrine concluded that public employment was a privilege, not a right, and subsequently significant restrictions could be placed on public employees that could not be constitutionally tolerated in the private sector.) Both the Adler Court and the majority in United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75 (1947), had upheld statutes on the basis of the doctrine of privilege. Clark distinguished United Public Workers by noting that political corruption was practically a unique case. Additionally, neither Adler nor United Public Workers