Reading Room Document

Policy prohibiting officials and employees of the Federal Government or of the Government of the District of Columbia from appearing before segregated groups

This opinion concluded that the government had the authority, and potentially the legal obligation, to prohibit its employees from appearing before segregated groups. The OLC compared the participation of federal employees in activities promoting segregated groups to a court’s enforcement of racial covenants, which the Supreme Court concluded violated the Fourteenth Amendment in Shelley v. Kraemer.

August 12, 1964