LAMONT V. POSTMASTER GENERAL (1965) (amicus)

In Lamont, the Court struck down a statute that required recipients of materials deemed to be “Communist political propaganda,” like periodicals and magazines, to submit a request in writing on a special reply card in order to have that mail delivered to them. Corliss Lamont, a professor of philosophy, former chair of the Friends of the Soviet Union, and a member of the board of directors of the ACLU, filed suit. The Supreme Court’s decision in Lamont’s favor was unanimous. In an influential concurrence, Justice William Brennan wrote, “The dissemination of ideas can accomplish nothing if otherwise willing addressees are not free to receive and consider them. It would be a barren marketplace of ideas that had only sellers and no buyers.”