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644 a state statute forbidding the employment in the public school system of persons belonging to organizations found to be subversive. This language in the opinion is peculiarly pertinent to the case at bar:

"A teacher works in a sensitive area in a schoolroom. There he shapes the attitude of young minds towards the society in which they live. In this, the state has a vital concern. It must preserve the integrity of the schools. That the school authorities have the right and the duty to screen the officials, teachers, and employees as to their fitness to maintain the integrity of the schools as a part of ordered society, cannot be doubted. One's associates, past and present, as well as one's conduct, may properly be considered in determining fitness and loyalty. From time immemorial, one's reputation has been determined in part by the company he keeps. In the employment of officials and teachers of the school system, the state may very properly inquire into the company they keep, and we know of no rule, constitutional or otherwise, that prevents the state, when determining the fitness and loyalty of such persons, from considering the organizations and persons with whom they associate."

In the Adler case the statute was directed only at subversion, but the court's language dealt repeatedly with fitness as well as with loyalty. We have no doubt that a school board might ask an applicant whether he belonged, specifically, to the Communist Party, to any organization dedicated to the violent overthrow of the government, to a nudist colony, to a drag-racing club, to an association of atheists, or to other organizations that might be listed almost without number, membership in which might shed light upon the applicant's fitness to guide young minds in the schoolroom. We are not persuaded that the constitution compels the board to ask scores or hundreds of permissible questions one by one, instead of making the blanket inquiry required by Act 10.

We conclude, as did the three-judge district court in Shelton v. McKinley, D.C. Ark., 174 F. Supp. 351,