Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners of the State of New Mexico, 353 U.S. 232 (1957) (U.S. Supreme Court)
Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners is a cornerstone of constitutional constraints on professional licensing, especially in the context of bar admissions.
Whether New Mexico's denial of Schware's bar admission, based on remote arrests without convictions, the historical use of aliases, and long-ago Communist Party membership, violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it lacked a rational connection to his present fitness to practice law.
A state may establish high standards for admission to the practice of law, including proof of good moral character and general fitness. However, under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, a state cannot exclude a person from the practice of law in a manner or for reasons that lack a rational connection with the applicant's fitness or capacity to practice. Arrests without convictions, non-fraudulent use of aliases, and past membership in a political organization—without proof of knowledge of and intent to further any unlawful aims—do not, by themselves, provide a rational basis to deny admission.
Reversed. The U.S. Supreme Court held that the Board's denial of Schware's bar application lacked a rational basis and therefore violated due process.
Schware is a foundational case limiting the discretion of bar examiners and other licensing authorities: character-and-fitness determinations must be grounded in evidence that rationally bears on present fitness to practice. The decision rejects the use of arrests without convictions, non-fraudulent aliases, and remote political associations as proxies for bad character. It also anticipates later jurisprudence (e.g., Konigsberg and Anastaplo) by underscoring constitutional protections for associational freedom and the right to pursue a chosen occupation. For law students, Schware frames how courts review administrative records for substantial, rationally connected evidence and how due process curbs arbitrary exclusion from the legal profession.