 After President Harry Truman issued an executive order in 1947 calling for loyalty investigations of federal employees, New York State adopted the "Feinberg Law" in 1949 providing for the dismissal of teachers who belonged to "subversive organizations".The New York Teachers' Union won a suit challenging the constitutionality of the Feinberg Law in the New York State Supreme Court, but the decision was reversed on appeal to the federal courts.The United States Supreme Court decided against the teachers in a 6–3 decision in 1952, in a case that became known as "Adler vs. Board of Education" because Adler was the plaintiff with the earliest name alphabetically.