SUPREME COURT JUDGE ALITO'S RECORD SHOWS HE IS HOSTILE TO CIVIL RIGHTS

The Supreme Court Judge Samuel Alito has a long record of hostility toward laws established to guarantee fairness, opportunity and privacy for all Americans, including women, senior citizens, people of color, and people with disabilities. His record shows that in crucial cases—precisely the kind of cases the Supreme Court is asked to review—Judge Alito consistently has taken positions that limit and devalue individual rights and protections. And because Judge Alito replaces Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a crucial swing vote in many key cases that preserved basic rights and laws, the implications of this confirmation are far-reaching.

The United States was founded with a suspicion of excessive executive power. And the three branches of government—Congress, the Supreme Court, and the executive branch—were created as separate but equal partners in a system that is supposed to have checks and balances against abuses of power. All three branches have to work together and one branch should not be the lone judge of its own powers. As the scandal grows around illegal surveillance of American citizens, people with all kinds of political views are making the connection between the importance of maintaining checks and balances and not relinquishing too much power to the executive office. And Judge Alito's past support for expanded presidential powers has politicians across the political spectrum concerned.

Judge Alito has just gotten the job of his lifetime and we have reason to mistrust that he is a man of his word. When Alito was at Princeton, he was a member of the "Concerned Alumni of Princeton," a group that tried to restrict admission of women and people of color (the group was found too extreme even for fellow alumni Bill Frist, who labeled the organization's views as "distorted, narrow and hostile"). Alito said during his confirmation hearings that he had "no recollection" of belonging to the group—even though he touted it when he applied for a prominent position in the Reagan administration. When he applied for that same position, he said that he strongly believed the Constitution does not legally protect a woman's right to choose; during the hearings he said he just said that to get the job.

We need judges who are fair and balanced. Judge Alito has a long record that demonstrates he does not support mainstream and bedrock legal rights and protections for all Americans. His record shows that many of the basic civil rights and freedoms we take for granted are threatened now that Judge Alito has been appointed to the Supreme Court. Here are some of his notable rulings and opinions.

CHOICE
With Judge Alito on the Supreme Court, a woman's reproductive rights and freedoms could be in deep trouble. In 1992's Planned Parenthood of Central Pennsylvania v. Casey, Judge Alito was the only judge who voted to allow a state law that said a woman was required to tell her husband before she had an abortion. Operation Rescue, an anti-choice group, responded to the nomination by saying: "Roe's days are numbered.... We are trusting that we are now on the fast-track to derailing Roe v. Wade as the law of the land."

Click here for the 1992 Supreme Court ruling disagreeing with Judge Alito's opinion on this issue.

CIVIL LIBERTIES
Judge Alito disagreed with the majority in another case, Doe v. Groody, that ruled that a woman and her 10 year-old daughter's rights had been violated when police officers strip searched them, unauthorized, in their own home.

DISABILITY RIGHTS
Judge Alito seeks restrictive standards for proving discrimination. In Nathanson v. Medical College of Pennsylvania, an employment discrimination case, he wrote a dissenting opinion that would have made it essentially impossible to get access to the court or to prove disability-based discrimination. The majority of the court—his colleagues—believed Alito's dissent was so restrictive that "few if any ... cases would survive summary judgment [be allowed access to the court]." He was overruled, but if he were on the Supreme Court he could reverse decades of progress in securing basic civil rights for people with disabilities.

THE ENVIRONMENT
In Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) v. Magnesium Elektron (MEI), Judge Alito was in the majority in a case that gutted citizens' access to the courts under the Clean Water Act. Although the federal act authorizes any citizen the right to bring legal action against alleged polluters, the ruling in this case declared that PIRG couldn't prove that the company's pollution resulted in serious harm to the environment (even though MEI had previously been fined $2.6 million for violating the Clean Water Act). Three years later, in Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw, the Supreme Court reversed and rejected Judge Alito's analysis.

PROTECTIONS FOR WORKING FAMILIES
In 2000's Chittister v. Department of Community and Economic Development, Judge Alito issued a ruling saying that Congress had exceeded its powers in passing the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which guarantees most workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a loved one in an emergency. The Supreme Court overturned that ruling in 2003, but if he is appointed to the Court, Judge Alito could threaten basic protections and rights for working families.

RACIAL JUSTICE
In Bray v. Marriott Hotels, Judge Alito disagreed with his colleagues on the Court of Appeals who ruled in favor of a Marriott Hotel manager who said she had been discriminated against on the basis of race. He argued that her case should not be heard in the courts and also for raising the burden of proof in race discrimination cases to make it more difficult for victims of discrimination to proceed.

Indicted for felony murder, James Taylor, and African American, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death by an all-white jury in Riley v. Taylor. When he first challenged his conviction in federal court, Alito was the deciding vote in striking down Taylor's claims of black jurors impermissibly rejected because of their race, an incompetent appointed lawyer, and a misled jury. Taylor's claims were finally upheld after several appeals, and it was found that his rights had in fact been violated. And the majority of the court took offense at Alito's earlier attempts to argue that statistical evidence about black jurors being repeatedly excluded from juries by the prosecution in death-penalty cases was like trying to explain why a disproportionate number of recent presidents were left-handed. The majority said that "[t]o suggest any comparability to the striking of jurors based on their race is to minimize the history of discrimination against prospective black jurors and black defendants...."