Report Describes Supreme Court Nominee Alito's Upbringing As Ordered, Conservative
Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito is conservative but not ideological, say friends, former colleagues and classmates, according to a new report.
Those who have interacted with Judge Alito during his formative years at home with his parents, as a student at Princeton University, and as a deputy attorney in the Reagan administration, say he respected family, had a diligent work ethic, and is not an ideologue, according to a report by the New York Times.
In 1985 Samuel Alito, Jr., had already spent eight years as a civil servant, a deputy assistant attorney general under the attorney general in the Justice Department during the Reagan administration.
One friend at the time, Professor Douglas W. Kmiec, described Alito as conservative, but not ideological and not belonging to a "tight political circle," according to the New York Times. Kmiec teaches constitutional law at Pepperdine University and worked with Alito in the mid 80s, becoming a good friend.
One professor from Yale, J.L. Pottenger Jr., who is described as a friend of Alito from his time at Princeton and Yale, says that he doesn't think of Alito as an ideologue who would try to “roll back the clock" as a Supreme Court judge.
In 1985, Alito began working at the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department and advised Attorney General Edwin Meese III, who in turn advised then-President Ronald Reagan and the executive branch.
Under Meese, Alito worked for a man whose view of the constitution is described by Kmiec as a conservative, a "thoughtful" proponent of originalism and federalism.
Alito’s family life is described as nurturing toward the law career he was would one day take up himself. His father, Samuel Alito, worked in an office that advises the New Jersey legislature. His mother was an elementary school teacher. Kmiec describes the junior Alito's writings as reflective of his father's clear, organized thinking. Alito’s mother was proud of his grammar in school.
Kmiec feels that for Alito, his Catholic faith "is a regularizing experience in the sense of bringing order to the world," a "community in which you obligate yourself to others and therefore feel part of something that's outside of yourself."
College Life
In college at Princeton, Alito wrote a paper as part of a class assignment that criticized federal agencies for invading privacy of individuals, opposed sodomy laws, and said discrimination against gays in hiring should not be allowed, according to the Boston Globe.
During his tenure as judge, Alito has not ruled on any major gay rights cases. The paper did not discuss what action the judiciary should take. Instead it focused on legislative action.
However a fellow student, Samuel L. Lipsman said in the New York Times that Alito was known as a "deeply conservative" person who opposed canceling school activities to protest the Vietnam War.
The report does not give information about Alito's views on the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in 1973. However a former roommate, Charles A. Reich, describes Alito as being "put out," when he wasn't assigned to the class of Robert H. Bork – then a professor of law who had opposed the decision. Bork was later rejected by the Senate when nominated for the Supreme Court in 1987.
