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October 31, 2005
Judge Alito: a fight brewing?Big news today is President Bush's nomination of Judge Samuel Alito of the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals to serve on the Supreme Court. AP write-up on Newsday.com, here. New York Times, here and MSNBC here. Lots of NPR coverage here.
Unlike John Roberts or Harriet Miers, Judge Alito has a long judicial record, one that will provide lots of grist for the confirmation mill. Here are a few NSBA summaries of Alito opinions in school law cases: this one striking down a district's policy against harassing speech; this one striking down a district's decision not to distribute materials from religious groups to students; and this one finding that a district court failed to accord "due weight" to a special ed hearing officer's decision that a district should have approved the transfer of a student who had been badly bullied to another school district.
Alito has taken a strong interest in cases involving free speech and religion, and his rulings will be of comfort to social conservatives who had misgivings about Miers. Look for discussion of his decisions in employment cases, too. These will be of interest to public school boards and administrators, who (for now at least) collectively employ and manage more Americans than even Walmart.
Posted October 31, 2005 3:53 PM
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Comments(1)
Posted by: P Zastrow on November 1, 2005 12:29 PM
It seems that whatever the socially conservative case may be, my worry is the concept that erosion of civil and individual liberties are still taking place. We do not need any conservative activists on the courts any more than liberal ones.
I worry that it sets a negative precedent for the youth of our country to see that the Bush administration so caters to their right-wing ideologues.
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