Senate consideration of Alito not expected to highlight his views on education
Senate consideration of Judge Samuel Alito's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court is not expected to highlight his views on education. "The sexy issues for the media are going to be the abortion issue, not really the education piece," says Francisco Negrón, general counsel of the National School Boards Association (NSBA). However, with a 15-year track record on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Judge Alito has provided plenty of evidence of his views on education. Mr. Negrón says his staff members have been studying Alito decisions that affect education—a "pretty predictable" record, he says. For example, Judge Alito's decisions suggest a view of the First Amendment's free exercise of religion clause that would favor students and outside groups in cases involving religious expression on public school campuses, rather than favoring the amendment's prohibition against government establishment of religion. "In some of his cases, he appears to be aware of the impact of the establishment-clause litigation on schools; he appears willing to insulate public schools [from lawsuits] if they disclaim that they are endorsing a particular action," says Mr. Negrón. With the exception of free speech and religion issues, Mr. Negrón believes the judge tends to place his trust in government authority, including school districts. He also points out that the good news for school districts is that Judge Alito is pro-employer. Mr. Negrón agrees with the American Bar Association that the judge is well qualified. He adds that the judge is a very artful writer. In response to a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire, Judge Alito listed his involvement in
Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education as one of his legal accomplishments. At the time he authored a friend of the court brief on behalf of the Reagan administration arguing that a local school board's use of race as a factor to protect minority teachers lacking seniority from layoffs violated the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection guarantees. Mr. Alito contended that "the layoff quota adopted by the Jackson school board emphatically flunks the constitutional standards governing racial classifications." The NSBA, which often files friend-of-the-court briefs on education-related cases in the Supreme Court, has not taken a formal position on Judge Alito's confirmation, Mr. Negrón says. The National Education Association (NEA), however, is expected to announce its opposition.
Education WeekBy Andrew Trotter
[Link to full story][
Editor's Note: COSA members and NSBA National Affiliate districts can download an NSBA Office of General Counsel memorandum summarizing Judge Alito's record on school law issues, below. As the above story predicted, the NEA opposes the nomination; see the organization's letter to Senators, also below. For more about Judge Alito's decisions on education issues, see the earlier Legal Clips
item. See also the op-ed by New York University professors Richard Arum and Jonathan Zimmerman, who charge that, "When it comes to education, in fact, Alito is no conservative. Instead, he's a raging judicial activist."]
[NSBA memorandum on Alito record][NEA letter opposing Alito nomination][NSBA School Law pages on Alito decisions]Philadelphia InquirerBy Richard Arum and Jonathan Zimmerman
[Link to full column]