More on Alito
Nov. 29th, 2005 09:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumOne of the things Judge Alito is proud of is his membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, back in the mid seventies.
hilzoy, at Obsidian Wings has a post about it. It supports the general trend I see that Alito is against things I think are good.
Some exerpts:
"-- In 1973, CAP mailed a letter to parents of freshmen implying that their sons and daughters were living in "cohabitation," rather than simply coeducational dorms.
— In 1975, a CAP board member tried to disrupt Annual Giving by writing to alumni in the business community to consider whether their gifts were "being used to undermine, subvert, and otherwise discredit the very businesses which are helping fund private education.""
Those aren't just hilzoy's take on the matter, those are quotations from the Daily Princetonian.
hilzoy also points to Steven Dujack, of the Princetonian, who says, "So in 2005, we know that in 1985, Alito belonged to a group that was dedicated to pointlessly interfering with the functioning of a university because its student body had representative numbers of women and minorities, as required by law. A group which, for its entire existence, used as its only tactics dissembling and dirty tricks; the list above doesn't begin to do justice in describing the organization's destructiveness. A lot of people were hurt in the process. A great university was damaged."
hilzoy (a Princeton alum, from the time in which CAP was active) points out the things which are lost to those of us looking back and seeing CAP as a strange bit of folderol, people making a stink about things which didn't really matter, To understand CAP, you really have to understand that until the late 60s, the almost total absence of black students at Princeton was a feature, not a bug. It was one of the reasons people went there.
Consider, against this backdrop, the following quote:
"Prospect" was founded in October 1972 by the then-newly-formed CAP, which was co-chaired by Asa Bushnell '21 and Shelby Cullom Davis '30. The latter, who was the University's largest donor at the time, was a strong traditionalist, firmly opposed to the many of the new directions Princeton was taking, including coeducation.
He wrote in "Prospect": "May I recall, and with some nostalgia, my father's 50th reunion, a body of men, relatively homogenous in interests and backgrounds, who had known and liked each other over the years during which they had contributed much in spirit and substance to the greatness of Princeton," according to an account in "The Chosen," a book by Jerome Karabel on the history of admissions at Harvard, Yale and Princeton.
"I cannot envisage a similar happening in the future," Davis added, "with an undergraduate student population of approximately 40% women and minorities, such as the Administration has proposed."
And:
"An alumnus wrote in 1974 in CAP’s magazine that “We had trusted the admissions office to select young men who could and would become part of the great Princeton tradition. In my day, [Dean of Student Affairs] Andy Brown would have been called to task for his open love affair with minorities.”
For a sense of Prospect's general level of discourse:
"People nowadays just don't seem to know their place," fretted a 1983 Prospect essay titled "In Defense of Elitism." "Everywhere one turns blacks and hispanics are demanding jobs simply because they're black and hispanic, the physically handicapped are trying to gain equal representation in professional sports, and homosexuals are demanding that government vouchsafe them the right to bear children."
And this:
"CAP supported a quota system to ensure that the vast majority of students would continue to be men. Asa Bushnell, then chairman of CAP, told the New York Times in 1974 that “Many Princeton graduates are unhappy over the fact that the administration has seen fit to abrogate the virtual guarantee that 800 [out of roughly 1,100] would continue to be the number of males in each freshman class.”
And for those conservatives who oppose affirmative action on the grounds that we should pay no attention to gender or ethnicity:
"Another article published that same year bemoaned the fact that "the makeup of the Princeton student body has changed drastically for the worse" in recent years--Princeton had begun admitting women in 1969--and wondered aloud what might happen if the university adopted a "sex-blind" policy "removing limits on the number of women." In an unsuccessful effort to forestall this frightening development, the executive committee of CAP published a statement in December 1973 that affirmed unequivocally, "Concerned Alumni of Princeton opposes adoption of a sex-blind admission policy."
Some will say this doesn't really matter, because it was on the job application where Alito claims he was just playing to the refs, doing what anyone would do to get a job (this is what those of us interested in calling things by name would call either misrepresenting oneself, or lying... neither of which; as they are self-confessed, leads me to place much faith in the answers he gives today. Past behavior often being indicitive of present and future behavior. If he'd lie to get a little job, why won't he lie to get a bigger job, one which others have said he really wants, to the point that he was described as being very unhappy when Harriet Meirs was named).
But it does, because the membership in CAP is consistent with his other statements, and his written opinions. Alito has a track record of saying, and supporting the views that women, and minorities (and that would seem to extend to religious, not just ethnic and racial) don't have the same rights as white men, nor even the same standig before the courts.
Which is against the principles of the country, and the motto above the Court, "Equal Justice Under Law".
hilzoy, at Obsidian Wings has a post about it. It supports the general trend I see that Alito is against things I think are good.
Some exerpts:
"-- In 1973, CAP mailed a letter to parents of freshmen implying that their sons and daughters were living in "cohabitation," rather than simply coeducational dorms.
— In 1975, a CAP board member tried to disrupt Annual Giving by writing to alumni in the business community to consider whether their gifts were "being used to undermine, subvert, and otherwise discredit the very businesses which are helping fund private education.""
Those aren't just hilzoy's take on the matter, those are quotations from the Daily Princetonian.
hilzoy also points to Steven Dujack, of the Princetonian, who says, "So in 2005, we know that in 1985, Alito belonged to a group that was dedicated to pointlessly interfering with the functioning of a university because its student body had representative numbers of women and minorities, as required by law. A group which, for its entire existence, used as its only tactics dissembling and dirty tricks; the list above doesn't begin to do justice in describing the organization's destructiveness. A lot of people were hurt in the process. A great university was damaged."
hilzoy (a Princeton alum, from the time in which CAP was active) points out the things which are lost to those of us looking back and seeing CAP as a strange bit of folderol, people making a stink about things which didn't really matter, To understand CAP, you really have to understand that until the late 60s, the almost total absence of black students at Princeton was a feature, not a bug. It was one of the reasons people went there.
Consider, against this backdrop, the following quote:
"Prospect" was founded in October 1972 by the then-newly-formed CAP, which was co-chaired by Asa Bushnell '21 and Shelby Cullom Davis '30. The latter, who was the University's largest donor at the time, was a strong traditionalist, firmly opposed to the many of the new directions Princeton was taking, including coeducation.
He wrote in "Prospect": "May I recall, and with some nostalgia, my father's 50th reunion, a body of men, relatively homogenous in interests and backgrounds, who had known and liked each other over the years during which they had contributed much in spirit and substance to the greatness of Princeton," according to an account in "The Chosen," a book by Jerome Karabel on the history of admissions at Harvard, Yale and Princeton.
"I cannot envisage a similar happening in the future," Davis added, "with an undergraduate student population of approximately 40% women and minorities, such as the Administration has proposed."
And:
"An alumnus wrote in 1974 in CAP’s magazine that “We had trusted the admissions office to select young men who could and would become part of the great Princeton tradition. In my day, [Dean of Student Affairs] Andy Brown would have been called to task for his open love affair with minorities.”
For a sense of Prospect's general level of discourse:
"People nowadays just don't seem to know their place," fretted a 1983 Prospect essay titled "In Defense of Elitism." "Everywhere one turns blacks and hispanics are demanding jobs simply because they're black and hispanic, the physically handicapped are trying to gain equal representation in professional sports, and homosexuals are demanding that government vouchsafe them the right to bear children."
And this:
"CAP supported a quota system to ensure that the vast majority of students would continue to be men. Asa Bushnell, then chairman of CAP, told the New York Times in 1974 that “Many Princeton graduates are unhappy over the fact that the administration has seen fit to abrogate the virtual guarantee that 800 [out of roughly 1,100] would continue to be the number of males in each freshman class.”
And for those conservatives who oppose affirmative action on the grounds that we should pay no attention to gender or ethnicity:
"Another article published that same year bemoaned the fact that "the makeup of the Princeton student body has changed drastically for the worse" in recent years--Princeton had begun admitting women in 1969--and wondered aloud what might happen if the university adopted a "sex-blind" policy "removing limits on the number of women." In an unsuccessful effort to forestall this frightening development, the executive committee of CAP published a statement in December 1973 that affirmed unequivocally, "Concerned Alumni of Princeton opposes adoption of a sex-blind admission policy."
Some will say this doesn't really matter, because it was on the job application where Alito claims he was just playing to the refs, doing what anyone would do to get a job (this is what those of us interested in calling things by name would call either misrepresenting oneself, or lying... neither of which; as they are self-confessed, leads me to place much faith in the answers he gives today. Past behavior often being indicitive of present and future behavior. If he'd lie to get a little job, why won't he lie to get a bigger job, one which others have said he really wants, to the point that he was described as being very unhappy when Harriet Meirs was named).
But it does, because the membership in CAP is consistent with his other statements, and his written opinions. Alito has a track record of saying, and supporting the views that women, and minorities (and that would seem to extend to religious, not just ethnic and racial) don't have the same rights as white men, nor even the same standig before the courts.
Which is against the principles of the country, and the motto above the Court, "Equal Justice Under Law".
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-29 05:48 pm (UTC)http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4171979
Marble facade falls from Supreme Court
(Washington-AP) November 28, 2005 - Part of the marble facade on the front of the Supreme Court collapsed Monday morning, falling onto the steps leading into the venerable building.
Eyewitnesses say no one was injured when the large chunk of marble fell onto the steps where tourists normally enter the building. Some court visitors were waiting outside and saw the marble crash to the ground.
The large piece of marble fell from the building's facade above the words, "Equal Justice Under Law" just before 10:00am.
The justices are meeting to issue orders and hear arguments.
Posted 10:13am by Bryce Mursch
Were I a bit more superstitious, I might take that as a sign...and of nothing good.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-29 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-29 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-29 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-30 08:36 pm (UTC)When I was at Princeton, my roomate and I formed the "Pro-Death Party." We advocated, among other things, death penalty for jay walkers and the use of snipers to enhance football games.
Perhaps more seriously, I had a number of friends who founded The Tory, the conservative magazine at Princeton that replaced Prospect, which was pretty dead when I started (1985). I was not myself one of them. I was going through my Heinlien-inspired Libertarian stage at the time and couldn't cotton to their social conservatism.
Now, about 20 years later, I consider myself a Dean Progressive. My day job involves getting the FCC to crack down on giant media monopolies.
Even 10 years ago, I was still playing with the question of which reprehensible political party I wanted to support, and did I have to buy the whole ticket. At the time, if someone had asked me about my association with my conservative friends, I might have waxed far more enthusiastic about it.
The reading of these tea leaves for clues of rampant revisionism has become an interesting past time. I look forward to seeing Alito at his hearing. But what I find distressing is the notion that, having supported particular positions 25 years ago, then reaffirmed them 20 years ago as part of a crusader in the conservative movement, that this reveals his "true" self more than his voluminous and more recent judicial writings. I thought the conservatives ridiculous for fixiating on Kerry's Vietnam War protests. I find it equally ridiculous to place such an emphasis on joining some organization in the past when there are a wealth of more recent things to draw on.
I also think you exagerate somewhat in your conclusion that Alito "has a track record of saying and supporting views that women and minorities don't have the same rights as white men." The truth is more pernicious. He is utterly indifferent to whether laws have a dispropritionate impact. Worse, he believes that laws designed to address the disproportionate impact of society or past injustice are unconstitutional.
It is this later that is, IMO, supported by the record, and may well prove him disqualified to sit as a justice. But there is a world of difference between such moral blindness and the comic book villain you propose.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-30 08:59 pm (UTC)He then explained his application by saying he was, "saying what had to be said to get the job."
His present judicial writings I talked about elsewhere.
TK