Talk:James E. Webb

Webb's military rank
The recent edit to Webb's rank in the infobox needs a citation in the article text, which must be changed if necessary. While 2nd lieut. is the entry-level officer grade, did he actually rise four levels in two years (-> lieut. -> capt. -> major -> lt. col.)? Surely his military history must be documented somewhere. JustinTime55 (talk) 20:04, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * And? -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 11:02, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Webb was a 33rd Degree Scottish Rite Freemason
I added the following to the article... '''Webb was a 33rd Degree member of Scottish Rite Freemasonry. ref. Ancient Aliens - The NASA Connection, History Channel 2, 2012''' - Brad Watson, Miami 71.196.11.183 (talk) 09:17, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ -- Nicely done. -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 11:04, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Quote about homosexuals was mis-attributed to Webb
This is an explanation of the edits that I made on July 10, 2015, which Pjefts reverted. I have reverted his reversion. It appears that the reversion was based on the fact that in addition to adding a lot of material, I deleted a quote about homosexuals that had been attributed to Webb. According to the source material originally cited in support of that quote, the quote came from the Hoey report, not from Webb.

The citation listed by the original editor in support of this quote (Edsal, Toward Stonewall, page 276-77,) actually reads:

"The politics of anti-Communism dated back to the beginnings of the Cold War in 1947-48 and were first broadened to include homosexuals in early 1950, when an under-secretary of state testified to a Senate committee that most of the government employees dismissed for moral turpitude were in fact homosexual. Sensing that they had uncovered a potentially disastrous weakness in the Truman administration, Republicans took up the issue with enthusiasm, and Democrats, suddenly placed on the defensive, felt compelled to follow suit. The Senate appointed a committee to investigate the employment of homosexuals in the federal government. Though cautious in estimating the number of "sex perverts" in government service, the committee report, issued in December 1950, nonetheless painted an alarming picture of their character, their influence, and their potential threat to the nation's security. "It is generally believed," the report noted, "that those who engage in overt acts of perversion lack the emotional stability of normal persons."

It seems a stretch to attribute a quote in the report directly to the testimony of the undersecretary of state (James Webb.)

The Hoey report itself, available at: https://mattachinesocietywashingtondc.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/document141.pdf, does not list Webb as a co-author. Indeed, Webb worked for the State Department and so would not have directly contributed any text to a Senate committee report anyway.

In the book Lavender Scare by David Johnson, on page 101 to 109 there is a detailed discussion of the Hoey committee and its report. That source establishes that the report was mostly written by Francis Flanagan (Chief Counsel to Senator Hoey.) On page 104, Johnson says that Webb met with Truman to devise a strategy for dealing with the Hoey committee, and that Truman then assigned the task of White House liaison to the committee to Stephen Springarm (not Webb.) Truman's goal was to contain the political damage, and they managed to keep the committee's proceedings in closed session (thus avoiding a media circus like the McCarthy hearings.) The White House also attempted to portray homosexuals in government as a medical issue rather than a security risk (in an attempt to downplay the issue,) although they weren't very successful at that.

The bottom line is that attributing that quote to Webb is historically inaccurate -- the statement was almost certainly written by Francis Flanagan.

The previous version of this page, in which is appeared that Webb's main goals during his tenure at State was to persecute homosexuals gave undue emphasis to his role.

According to Webb's biographer (Lambright), Webb's main objectives during his time at the Department of State were: reorganizing the department to be closer to the White House, struggling with the new Department of Defense over the appropriate budget for containing the Soviet Union, and dealing with the Korean War. Although the Edsal and Johnson references establish that Webb was involved in the State department purges at the level of briefing Congress and Truman, he was not the instigator of those purges (they started in 1947 and he joined State in 1949,) and they don't seem to be a big part of what he focused on. Lambright does not even mention it in the biography.

Nf7443 (talk) 19:59, 11 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Further sourced research has shown this to be the case. I removed the two sentences that reference the misquotes. https://hmoluseyi.medium.com/was-nasas-historic-leader-james-webb-a-bigot-131c821d5f12 &mdash;Ben Brockert (42) 15:58, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Blog posts on Medium are not reliable sources. (An academic peer review of that post would probably interrogate its portrayal of Humelsine's memo, for starters, and point out that Webb passed Humelsine's material directly to Senator Hoey .) As it stands, the current article underplays what the cited source says about Webb's role regarding Truman and the Hoey committee. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:01, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * "unless the author is a subject-matter expert", which is the case here. &mdash;Ben Brockert (42) 14:20, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * He's an astrophysicist, not a historian. In any case, that paragraph has been rewritten, and the rewrite is being discussed below. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:14, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * He is an astrophysicist but he says clearly in the Medium article that he worked closely with NASA historians and archivists, and a history PhD student at University of Alabama in Huntsville. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DarkEnergy1998 (talk • contribs)

The present article contains this quote: "Purges of LGBTQ state employees continued throughout Webb's tenure at the State Department, with Webb's subordinates continuing to report the dismissals of dozens of LGBTQ workers from 1950 to 1952.[13]". This is misleading. A State Department memo (https://catalog.archives.gov/id/54538193) following the one meeting with Webb mentioned on this wikipedia page, outlines the reporting structure. The memo indicates that the men mentioned in Ref 13 are to report John E. Puerifoy and Carlisle H. Humelsine, not James Webb, who following this meeting has no responsibilities in the matter. 16:03, 26 December 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:6AF0:C90:1155:629B:9563:747F (talk)

NASA section copyvio template.
I removed the copyvio template for the section on his NASA career. The template had stated the section appeared to be a copy and paste from a NASA website. NASA is a government agency, and works produced by government agencies are not protected by copyright law:

About U.S. Government Works A United States government work is prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties. It is not subject to copyright in the United States and there are no copyright restrictions on reproduction, derivative works, distribution, performance, or display of the work. Anyone may, without restriction under U.S. copyright laws: reproduce the work in print or digital form; create derivative works; perform the work publicly; display the work; distribute copies or digitally transfer the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. Mmyers1976 (talk) 15:57, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 19:24, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Webb and homosexuality
For now I am removing the re-written section on Webb and homosexuality. This is an attempt to link Webb to anti-homosexual policies during the 1950s. Webb may very well have been actively involved in rooting out gay people from government agencies, but that is the work of historians and investigative reports; it is not the work of Wikipedians (see: WP:PSTS). In the current paragraph which I have removed, the part that links Webb to direct involvement comes from a primary source, the "Memorandum from Stephen J. Spingarn with Note". While that document seems to implicate Webb on this issue, that assessment needs to be made by a historian or investigative reporter. In other words, it needs to come from a secondary source. A historian studying this subject may know more about this document than we do, and may better understand the context. I am not saying that XOR'easter doesn't understand the context or the document. I am saying XOR'easter is not allowed by Wikipedia to make those judgments. Those judgments can only come from secondary, reliable sources.

I, too, have been looking for sources to connect Webb to these allegations. I have also reached out to the editor who made the claim in this article originally (I haven't heard back yet from that editor). If and when a secondary reliable source can be found, then and only then can a paragraph like this exist in the article.

I hope my explanation makes sense. If it doesn't, please respond here. Sincerely, Kingturtle = (talk) 04:08, 26 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Webb joined the State Department during McCarthyism, and the Department was under considerable pressure from Congress to root out communists, anarchists and others deemed un-American and a security risk. Webb met with Truman in 1950 to discuss the administration's response to the Congressional hearings. As Undersecretary of State, Webb acted as intermediary between Truman and the Congressional subcommittee led by Senator Clyde R. Hoey that investigated "the employment of homosexuals in the Federal workforce." Carlisle Humelsine, an official in the State Department, prepared a memorandum stating that homosexuals were "characterized by emotional instability" and "unsuitable for employment" in that Department. The memorandum referred to unnamed "studies" that related the "rise of homosexuality with the accompanying decline of the Egyptian, Greek and Roman Empires". Webb then passed the material that had been prepared for him on to Hoey. Although the White House was not politically able to quell Congressional fervor, it implemented a strategy to emphasize the medical aspects and play down the security concerns of homosexuals in the government.


 * The Lavender Scare describes Webb's role as go-between for Truman and Hoey's subcommittee. I'm not a fierce devotee of the paragraph as written, but it's definitely a usable source; it and the Shibusawa article justify everything here, though of course phrasing is up for debate. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 06:24, 26 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I've been searching Newspapers.com for anything at all linking Webb to this, but haven't found anything yet. I am still trying. Kingturtle = (talk) 21:17, 26 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I am doubtful that contemporaneous newspapers would have much on the topic. The best references, judging from what we've seen so far, would probably be academic books and articles studying the events retrospectively. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:00, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

(and others): FWIW: seems this topic may be related to a recent (1 March 2021) issue of Scientific American which was added to the main James E. Webb article (but reverted several times by an ip editor without discussion or explanation on the talk-page) as follows:



Copied from: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_E._Webb&diff=prev&oldid=1010170807

'In March 2021, a commentary in Scientific American'' urges NASA to rename the James Webb Space Telescope due to Webb's efforts while a NASA administrator, disclosed in 2015, to implement governmental policies in place at the time to purge LGBT individuals from the federal workforce. '''

NOTE: My original edit was subsequently improved by editor User:Randy Kryn => https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_E._Webb&diff=1010225981&oldid=1010170807

Hope this helps in some way - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 23:10, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I read the Scientific American opinion piece. The piece itself accuses Webb of either being "complicated" or "complicit". This Wikipedia article claims that he made "efforts...to implement [preexisting anti-LGBT] policies". The authors of the opinion piece don't make such a claim. Wikipedia distorts the facts, or actually creates facts not in the record. Nor is the piece is noteworthy, imho. Any reference to it should be removed.98.21.218.134 (talk) 18:46, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The statement currently in the article seems a fair summary of what the opinion piece says (({tq|Webb’s role as a facilitator of homophobic policy discussions}}, etc.). Doubtless tweaks are possible, but I don't see the argument for removing it. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 21:01, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Removed section as per Kingturtle ='s comments. Please stop edit warring to keep this section in without secondary sources. Ergzay (talk) 11:50, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
 * The comment at the beginning of this thread is from January, while the text in question was added in March and has been restored by multiple users . And the dispute has continued to attract attention and generate commentary, which counts as a secondary source. Without an explicit consensus against it, I'd say it should stay, with the secondary source added. , thoughts? XOR&#39;easter (talk) 14:52, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Also pinging, who edited the text for clarity and brevity back in March . XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:49, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping. My edit was mainly to change the word 'report' to 'commentary', which seemed to more accurately describe the journalistic category of the piece. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:49, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, "commentary" is better. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:06, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with including this. WP:Secondary sources have to be reliable, and an article that is clearly an op-ed in Slate and dripping with name-change advocacy is not some sort of unbiased news report or academic work. As that opinion piece even notes, an astrophysicist (just as much of a subject matter expert as any of these other individuals) wrote a Medium post expressing a contrary view. Op-eds aren't any more fact checked than Medium posts. The fact that this only has attention from op-eds tells us that it does not belong and is WP:UNDUE, same as is always done in such situations. Wikipedia is not for advocacy. Crossroads -talk- 03:25, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I think the WP:V issue is a red herring. The Scientific American piece doesn't need to be reliable for the purpose of establishing that Webb was involved in the purge of homosexuals from the federal government, because that's not what is being claimed in wiki-voice in the at-issue text. Rather, the text is saying "someone wrote a commentary in Scientific American claiming that Webb was involved in the Lavender scare and advocating for renaming the telescope for that reason". So yeah, of course the cited source is an opinion piece "dropping with name-change advocacy", rather than an unbiased news report - the text makes no secret of this. The only relevant question here is whether mentioning the commentary is giving it WP:UNDUE weight. Given that this view has been given space in several other sources in the months since the SA piece, I'm inclined to think that a one-sentence mention is appropriate (and it's definitely more suited to this article rather than James Webb Space Telescope). If a year from now it turns out the issue was never mentioned again in any RS, then yeah, maybe it should be jettisoned as WP:RECENTISM. Colin M (talk) 16:41, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Sounds fair to me. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:36, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
 * What are these "several other sources"? Something that is just mentioned in op-eds does not get a free ride in Wikipedia until it turns out that, oops, it was RECENTISM, and it gets cut. RECENTISM precludes inclusion unless and until it gets better coverage. WP:ONUS also requires a consensus to include something, or else it stays out. Crossroads -talk- 03:02, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
 * So there are of course the "Some people said X" blog posts that came shortly after the op-ed (e.g.), but I won't dwell on those since they don't tell us much. But there's also, for example, the Slate piece which is currently cited in the article. It was published 2 months after the Scientific American op-ed, and covers the issue at a fairly in-depth level (rather than just laundering the original SA op-ed). And here's an example of some reporting (a few weeks after the op-ed) on the telescope launch date which includes two paragraphs in passing about the name controversy. Interestingly, it mentions that the agency is actually actively investigating Webb's involvement in the State Dept. program, seemingly in response to the calls for renaming. This is also mentioned in this American Physics Institute bulletin (under the heading "NASA Considering Case for Renaming Webb Telescope"). The fact that NASA is seemingly taking action in response to the name-change advocates suggests to me that this is not just some flash-in-the-pan fringe view that's unworthy of even mentioning. Colin M (talk) 17:43, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, it looks like NASA performed an investigation. The conclusion: A NASA director, Sean O'Keefe “hasn't seen anything that convinces him that Webb was directly involved in demanding a purge of gay government officials or carrying it out”.  Samboy (talk) 16:33, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * From that article: the agency has offered no other details about how that review was conducted or who evaluated its findings — other than mentioning that historians were involved. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:55, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

[Outdent]

Right now, the lack of name change has been reported by, of places whose reliability we have discussed before NPR (Green over at WP:RSP), The Hill (Green over at WP:RSP), and, with some more click bait in the article Gizmodo (while green over at WP:RSP, it’s actually yellow for this kind of stuff: “There is no consensus on whether it is generally reliable for controversial statements.”) There’s also an article in something called Futurism, but that webpage isn’t over at RSP, so I think it’s best to ignore it for now since we have better sourcing. I think we should base what we say on what NPR and The Hill say: NASA did an investigation, didn’t find evidence, no details available. Based on the evidence I’ve seen beyond “green” reliable sources, I would say Gizmodo dropped the ball here (going in to WP:TABLOID territory), but that’s a WP:RSN discussion. Samboy (talk) 00:11, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

A citation by an editorial to a blog post of a non-historian, is not a credible source. In addition, WP is behind a pay wall and this situation is deprecated as Wikipedia is designed to be viewable by most to all possible readers. At any rate the article merely repeats the non-credible source with no further useful information. So I have removed it.Wjhonson (talk) 17:40, 21 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Blog posts are not reliable sources, except as pertains to the author's own life and experiences. Editorial content of any newspaper is not a reliable source for a statement of fact, which would include any statement refuting a statement of fact otherwise published.  See RSWjhonson (talk) 17:58, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Your claim about paywalls is incorrect. See WP:PAYWALL. As for the reliability of the source for statements of fact, we are not making the claim in wikivoice, but rather using in-text attribution ("Astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi wrote an article saying that..."), so there is no problem of verifiability. It's only a question of due weight. Colin M (talk) 20:49, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

There is an awful lot on the page on the telescope naming controversy. Much of it now dedicated to the assessment of an unidentified intern – which seems like a lot of detail for a page which is about Webb more generally. Is it worth creating a separate page on the controversy, and just pointing to it here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.123.252.42 (talk) 06:15, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

claim of overseeing "critical first manned launches" marked as dubious
I've removed this tag and do not understand why it was placed there. The claim that his administration oversaw the critical first manned launches is clear and verifiable.

Webb was in office from Feb 1961 through Oct 1968. This period covers this first suborbital flight by an American (Mercury Redstone 3 in May 1961) through the days before the first Apollo flight (Apollo 7 in Oct 1968).

I wonder if the editor that placed this tag was concerned that Webb was not administrator when the Apollo program reached the surface of the Moon, but that's not the claim.MadeYourReadThis (talk) 15:22, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Contents of the article lead
The article lead is currently two paragraphs. One is a summary of the life of the article subject, the other is a summary of a controversy about the name of a telescope that was named after him well after he died.

My questions are: 1. What percentage of the lead should cover the telescope/overlap with that article. It was named after him, but he isn't actually involved in the topic any deeper.

2. If the telescope name is controversial because of this articles subject's actions, shouldn't those actions be in the lead instead of the controversy over the actions causing a telescope naming controversy? Wouldn't his actions be more notable than the controversy over the telescope name? (which is covered pretty thoroughly in the article about the telescope)

I'm pinging in the last user to lengthen the lead to be about the telescope for their thoughts/reasoning User:Dirkbb — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.202.75.102 (talk) 00:51, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

In this case the telescope name is controversial despite the subject's actions. That is, no evidence of his involvement in what he is accused of has ever been convincingly demonstrated. So, putting the alleged actions in the lead would not be right. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.108.164.53 (talk) 04:04, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Removal of mention of Hakeem Oluseyi's research
In this diff, an editor who has made only one edit to the Wikipedia attempted to remove this content: "Astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi wrote an article saying that the initial accusations that Webb was part of the Lavender Scare were based on a quote attributed to Webb which he never said, and that there is little to no evidence Webb took part in anti-gay discrimination". This is a pretty relevant point which has been mentioned by reliable sources and should not be swept under the rug.

Please do not remove this reliably sourced information without discussion here. Also, here is the full quote and reference:


 * Astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi wrote an article saying that the initial accusations that Webb was part of the Lavender Scare were based on a quote attributed to Webb which he never said, and that there is little to no evidence Webb took part in anti-gay discrimination.

Samboy (talk) 14:17, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Clarity about Norton
Previous version: [another statement about Norton] who in 1963 was accused of homosexual behavior, arrested and fired, with NASA calling his suspected conduct "immoral, indecent, and disgraceful" (Norton later successfully sued the State Department, which was responsible for administering the policy which led to his firing).

This was unsourced, and in my effort to find a source, a very different story emerged, and I realized that this article properly demands far more clarity about Norton, whose firing is among the central to the allegations against Webb.

Justia had a great overview of the appeal case, so I cribbed directly what seemed most important to get exactly right, and pastiched as much as possible elsewhere so as not to stray into copyvio (note that it's part of Justia's stated business model to offer free summaries of legal cases, in addition to offering quite different paid services, so I see them as borderline CC BY-SA in their stated disposition; nevertheless, I did strive to minimize direct lifting, even of material which they in turn lifted from the public legal documents).

On 22 October 1963, Norton was observed by the Morals Squad cruising Lafayette Square in his car, picking up a man he had never seen before that night, one Madison Monroe Procter. Proctor subsequently described his perception of Norton's intent, in a written statement to police, as having been that "it would take an idiot not to be able to figure [out] that he wanted to have [a] sex act on me". On the basis of this incident, NASA accused Norton of homosexual behavior and had him fired, with NASA calling his conduct "immoral, indecent, and disgraceful".

Norton specifically denied that "he was a homosexual, that he had made an indecent advance to Procter, and that he had knowingly engaged in any homosexual activity during his adult life", but did not deny his contact with Proctor on the night of 22 October 1963, which NASA characterized as a "homosexual advance", without claiming that Norton's alleged advance lead to homosexual activities. In a 1969 appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, chief judge David L. Bazelon ruled: "We think — and appellant does not strenuously deny — that the evidence was sufficient to sustain the charge that, consciously or not, he made a homosexual advance to Procter." This ruling, however, went on to reverse the judgement of the District Court, on technical considerations of Norton's preferred employment status under the Veterans' Preference Act, which obligated NASA to demonstrate harm to the "efficiency of the service", which NASA failed to do on several grounds the court might have considered, resting solely on the "possibility of embarrassment to the agency", having additionally revealed during the legal proceedings that the NASA official who fired Norton, a Mr. Garbarini, had actively inquired "if there was any way around this kind of problem for the man", as Norton was regarded as a "competent employee" doing "very good" work, who was not in contact with the public, and not bringing any details of his private life to the attention of his fellow employees.

Lest there be any doubt, we emphasize that we do not hold that homosexual conduct may never be cause for dismissal of a protected federal employee. Nor do we even conclude that potential embarrassment from an employee's private conduct may in no circumstances affect the efficiency of the service. What we do say is that, if the statute is to have any force, an agency cannot support a dismissal as promoting the efficiency of the service merely by turning its head and crying "shame".
 * — quotation sourced via Justia

Not quite the same story, is it?


 * It is worth pointing out that Justia makes clear that it is this very case that establishes that if "the statute is to have any force, an agency cannot support a dismissal as promoting the efficiency of the service merely by turning its head and crying "shame"." And that there were many other dismissals prior at other government agencies that did fall into this category. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.108.164.53 (talk) 23:12, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

In my past life, I've had gay roommates for years at a time. The least most of my former roommates would say of Norton based on this portrait is that he was actively gay curious, and kicking the tires in earnest, with little semblance of subterfuge. Note that I left out the portion of testimony concerning Norton's admission of being "invited up" to men's apartments, only to black out afterwards, professing no recollection of events that may or may not have transpired.

I'm well aware that this is the appalling anguish that all feel whose disposition places them at odds with the prevailing "moral majority" at any point in history, while somehow hoping to have it both ways. But the issue at stake here is the splash damage from the prudish and paranoid ethos of the 1960s onto James Webb, in particular.

One more thing: I looked into "moral squad" and this appears to be the standard euphemism of the day for the D.C Police Department's vice squad.

I'm a one-and-done editor for the most part. Revert or revise at will. &mdash; MaxEnt 00:02, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It’s a good, well research story. I think this part has gotten long enough we can make a Clifford Norton separate article, to avoid this article having WP:COATRACK concerns.  Samboy (talk) 06:05, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi. I agree with the Coatrack concerns, however, there is not enough in-depth coverage in the article which was split out to pass WP:GNG.  I can't read the NYT article (paywall), but the other sources are a primary source (the case), two articles which don't even mention Norton, and two others which have short blurbs about him.  You'd need at least 2 other in-depth sources about Norton to show enough notability for a standalone article. Onel 5969  TT me 09:01, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Timeline problem: The first paragraph of this section now reads as though the Norton incident was a centrepiece of the original criticism; it wasn't, as a perusal of the four given references here shows. Norton is mentioned only in one of them, and then only as an aside. The original accusations were to do with Webb's role at the State Department. When a deeper dive of the evidence didn't support those accusations, the articles critical of Webb shift more to the Norton case. Discussing the Norton case is appropriate here, but at present the ordering of this section is misleading. After a brief opening paragraph which suggests the Norton case is central, the next three are all about Norton. Yet this section is purported to be about the Telescope Naming Controversy, which *began* with the misattributed quote and was then about Webb's role at State. So, the section needs to be turned upside down to give a correct account of the controversy.

Sources which mention Clifford Norton
Since it’s a question of sourcing, sources which discuss Clifford Norton:


 * https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/queerspaceep5 “today’s aerospace trailblazer was a humble NASA civil servant and petitioner named Clifford Norton” Transcript: https://airandspace.si.edu/multimedia-gallery/queerspace-ep-5-fight-your-rightpdf
 * https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00845-6 "It came in the case of Clifford Norton, who had appealed against being fired from NASA for “immoral, indecent, and disgraceful conduct”. In the decision, the chief judge wrote that the person who had fired Norton had said that he was a good employee and asked whether there was a way to keep him on. Whomever he consulted in the personnel office told him that it was a “custom within the agency” to fire people for “homosexual conduct”."
 * https://www.wired.com/story/a-new-film-challenges-the-james-webb-telescopes-controversial-name/ "In 1963, the suit alleges, employee Clifford Norton was seen in a car with another man and then taken into police custody; NASA security subsequently brought him to the agency’s headquarters and interrogated him throughout the night. According to Norton’s suit, in which he was defended by former astronomer Frank Kameny, he was told that it was a “custom within the agency” to fire people for “homosexual conduct” and was then dismissed from his position. An appeals court later ruled that employees “couldn’t be fired solely on grounds of being homosexual.”"
 * https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/10/01/how-gay-rights-activists-remade-federal-government/ "By the early 1960s, however, the Mattachine Society of Washington, working with the National Capital Area Civil Liberties Union, developed a litigation strategy for challenging the commission’s discriminatory policy. They found an ally in the courts. In the 1969 decision in Norton v. Macy, the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declared discriminatory practices unconstitutional. That case pitted Clifford Norton, a NASA employee arrested by D.C. police for homosexual solicitation and then interrogated for several hours by NASA security agents, against John Macy, the highly homophobic chair of the Civil Service Commission."

That’s four sources, one more than WP:THREE, and the first one alone gives us enough in-depth information about Norton to give him a biography in the Wikipedia (along with Justia information we already have) Samboy (talk) 14:41, 26 September 2022 (UTC)


 * As I said above, I had no problem with it being split off, just with the referencing. However, I don't think any of your sources are in-depth enough to meet GNG.  I think perhaps there could be an article about Norton v Macy, which is what all the sourcing is really about.  Norton is incidental, due to him being part of the lawsuit.  Onel 5969  TT me 21:22, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Inappropriate level of detail, missing detail
 * A biography of Norton is appropriate. However, this much information on the Norton case on this page is not. The information on the Norton case now overwhelms everything else here, yet Webb's name is not mentioned a single time in the trial documentation. This is a page about Webb. People have claimed that Norton's firing reflects badly on Webb and this forms part of the controversy, so it needs to be mentioned. But right now information on the Norton case fills the screen, and then after the quotes we get to a single sentence that says there's no evidence Webb knew anything about it, and it wasn't even his job. This is not balanced. Additionally, a key detail that Norton sued Macy (head of the Civil Service), is absent entirely. The judge was critical of NASA, but he found against the Civil Service, because they were the ones that administered the policy. Leaving off this detail misleadingly suggests that this was a NASA policy about which Webb had control, which he did not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.108.164.53 (talk) 21:15, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

no program of equal employment
somebody invented a program for equal employment at nasa in the 1960s. that seems to be untrue. and webb especially was not mentioned anywhere in such a context. more the contrary, but no evidence in either side: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-shares-james-webb-history-report. --ThurnerRupert (talk) 08:23, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Honorary Degree
Hi! I am new to editing on Wikipedia. While researching an assignment, I noticed James E. Webb received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from New Mexico State University in 1966. https://commencement.nmsu.edu/historical.html

I am considering adding it to this article. ASURonnie (talk) 23:02, 26 November 2023 (UTC)