Home > Great American Court Cases > Afroyim v. Rusk

Legal Citation: 387 U.S. 253 (1967)

Petitioner
Afroyim

Respondent
Dean Rusk, U.S. Secretary of State

Petitioner's Claim
Section 401(e) of the Nationality Act of 1940, 8 U.S.C. sec. 801 (1946), which provided that American citizens automatically lost their citizenship if they voted in a foreign election, was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
Edward J. Ennis

Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Charles Gordon

Justices for the Court
Hugo Lafayette Black (writing for the Court), William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Abe Fortas, Earl Warren

Justices Dissenting
Tom C. Clark, John Marshall Harlan II, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White

Place
Washington, D.C.

Date of Decision
29 May 1967

Decision
Held that the Fourteenth...