Alito on the Record
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 1/11/2006
During his Senate hearings opening statement Monday, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito began attempting to distance himself from any view he expressed before 1990, when he became a federal judge. But opponents say that Alito's record as a judge is as out of the mainstream as the extreme views expressed before he joined the bench.
When seeking a Reagan administration job promotion in 1985, Alito highlighted his association with the controversial Concerned Alumni of Princeton, a group that opposed efforts to admit more women and minorities into the college. On Tuesday, Alito testified he could not recall being a member of the group. He then hypothesized he may have joined the group when the ROTC was expelled from the campus because of anti-war politics.
Alito denied knowing about the controversial positions of the group or that the group had received significant attention. Opponents point out that in fact, this was a huge controversy, prompting criticism from Sen. Bill Frist, R. Tenn. and the resignation of former Senator Bill Bradley.
Senators also continued to address Judge Alito's record on employment discrimination cases involving race. Although he has heard dozens of cases during his 15-year career on the federal bench, Judge Samuel Alito has "never authored even one opinion favoring an African-American plaintiff on the merits in such a case," according to a December 2005 report of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (NAACP LDF).
Tuesday, testifying about his ruling in Bray v. Marriott Hotel, Alito said that the defendant company had committed only a "minor" violation of its employment procedures that did not amount to a "pretext" for discrimination. In fact, the majority opinion found much more evidence of the company's violation of its own practices, warranting a trial on whether discrimination occurred.
"Judge Alito has repeatedly claimed to be 'open minded,' but words are only meaningful when they are connected to actions. And Alito's actions--his record as a judge and his statements as an attorney--are hardly comforting," Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said.
Henderson said that Alito's disturbing record on civil rights is at the core of LCCR's opposition to Judge Alito's nomination to be an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, and has given a broad range of groups, including as the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, the Mexican American Legal and Educational Fund, the Asian American Justice Center, the National Women's Law Center, Unitarian Universalist Association, and the National Coalition for Disability Rights, no choice but to oppose him.
In a January 5 memo, LCCR wrote that it was "particularly concerned that Judge Alito's overly restrictive views and narrow interpretation of the law have deeply informed his judicial decision making, putting him outside of the judicial mainstream on a number of key civil rights issues, including voting rights, employment discrimination, the rights of criminal defendants, and the power of Congress to prevent and remedy discrimination."
"While Judge Alito has repeatedly claimed to have 'no agenda,' he has failed to distance himself from his record of antagonism toward the protection of civil rights. That sounds like an agenda to me," LCCR's Henderson said.
Alito's first day of questioning fueled other concerns of opponents. Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women and Families, the group that wrote the Family & Medical Leave Act (FMLA), expressed alarm about Alito's testimony Tuesday on the FMLA.
"We are deeply troubled by Judge Alito's testimony today on the FMLA. In response to several questions, Judge Alito argued that, in Chittister, there was no evidence of discrimination in personal sick leave practices. But there is compelling evidence in the legislative history that Judge Alito chose to ignore. Judge Alito owes Senators and the nation an explanation about why, in the Chittister case and so often during in his long career on the bench, he ignored, misread or cherry-picked facts and legal histories in order to rule against workers," Ness said.
IndependentCourt.org, a coalition of public interest groups, said that Alito's statement that he would have an "open mind" echoed statements made by Clarence Thomas during his Supreme Court hearing. "Thomas voted to overturn Roe," IndependentCourt.org said. "What would Alito do?"
