Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183 (1952), is a unanimous ruling by the United States Supreme Court which held that Oklahoma loyalty oath legislation violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution because it did not give individuals the opportunity to abjure membership in subversive organizations. Due process requires that individuals have scienter (knowledge that their membership or support violates the loyalty oath), and the Oklahoma statute did not accommodate this requirement. Background In 1950, the state of Oklahoma enacted legislation requiring all state officers and employees to take an oath pledging loyalty to the United States of America, affirming that they did not advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, and denying direct or indirect involvement with or support of any "agency, party, organization, association, or group whatever which has been officially determined by the United States Attorney General or other authorized agency of the United States to be a communist front or subversive organization". Several faculty and staff at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College refused to take the oath within the required 30 days after employment. Paul W. Updegraff, an Oklahoma citizen, sued in the District Court of Oklahoma County to prevent the state from paying these individuals their salaries. The faculty and staff members asked to intervene in the suit, and were permitted to do so. They argued that the Act was a bill of attainder; an ex post facto law; made it impossible for them to fulfill their contracts with the state; and violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The district court upheld the Act. The faculty and staff appealed to the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The Oklahoma Supreme Court upheld the Act. The faculty and staff appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which granted certiorari. Majority opinion Associate Justice Tom C. Clark wrote the opinion for the majority. Clark accepted the Oklahoma Supreme Court's interpretation that the Act proscribed membership in and support only for those organizations listed on the U.S. Attorney General's list as of the date of enactment. Organizations not on that list, even if communist, were required to be abjured. Clark argued that the present case must be adjudicated within the context of three recent Supreme Court decisions: Garner v. Board of Public Works, 341 U.S. 716 (1951); Adler v. Board of Education, 342 U.S. 485 (1952); and