Senate confirmation hearings for Judge John A. Roberts will touch on education issues
The Senate confirmation hearings for Judge John A. Roberts Jr. are sure to draw upon tens of thousands of memoranda, letters, and articles concerning him that have been unearthed since July, including many that touch on education. A number of groups, including the People For the American Way, the Alliance for Justice, and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, have expressed opposition to his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing positions he took on church-state issues. The American Civil Liberties Union, while expressing "deep concern" over Judge Roberts' civil rights positions, has stopped short of opposing his nomination. Others who have sifted through materials on Judge Roberts argue that one should be wary of drawing strong conclusions about his personal legal views. "I would take these things with a grain of salt," Tom Hutton, a lawyer for the National School Boards Association (NSBA), says in reference to the nominee's paper trail. The NSBA often submits friend-of-the-court briefs on education-related cases before the Supreme Court, and it endorsed Mr. Roberts in 2003 when he was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in Washington. The NSBA is not taking a formal position this time, but Mr. Hutton says it stands by its favorable opinion of the nominee. It would be nearly impossible to separate Judge Roberts' views from "the legal questions his memoranda address, and either the political issues that were at play around those issues, or the colorful rhetoric he employs as he makes his point." For example, one memo "that's attracted some attention" is on the politically charged issue of "Congress' ability to legislate against busing as a remedy for desegregation" but legally deals with "the separation of powers [of the branches of government], a fairly esoteric issue," Mr. Hutton says in reference to a 1982 memo the nominee wrote as wrote as a White House lawyer under President Reagan. Roger Clegg, the general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative think tank, adds, "I think that the critics of Judge Roberts are quick to assume that because he gave conservative policy advice when he was in the executive branch that this tells you how he's going to vote as a judge. As conservatives are always having to explain, and as the left never seems to understand, the judicial role is not simply to vote our policy preferences, but to apply the law, to follow the text of the Constitution and the text of statutes." "That's pure poppycock," replies Ralph G. Neas, the president and chief executive officer of People For the American Way. Throughout his career, Mr. Roberts has been "part of a cadre of right-wing legal policy advocates," he argues.
Education WeekBy Andrew Trotter
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[NSBA School Law pages on Roberts nomination]