Alito nomination endangers civil-rights legacy

By Eva Paterson and Kimberly Thomas Rapp
San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday, Dec. 1, 2005


Fifty years ago today, Rosa Parks' refusal to bow to injustice provided the impetus for a civil-rights movement that would breathe life into the constitutional promise of equal rights for all Americans.

Yet, even as we celebrate her courageous stand, we face the possibility of the confirmation of a U.S. Supreme Court nominee who would turn the clock back on our hard-won civil rights. Samuel A. Alito's record demonstrates that, if confirmed, he will prove a friend to those seeking to reverse civil-rights protections.

Alito's nomination represents the culmination of a 30-year effort by legal forces to reverse the advancements of Mrs. Parks and millions of others. While sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Judge Alito exhibited disdain for ordinary citizens who look to our legal system for redress from discrimination in employment and in our courts of law. For example, in one particularly telling dissent -- Glass vs. Philadelphia Electric Company -- he argued that allowing a plaintiff to present evidence of racial harassment to a jury in an effort to explain negative comments from superiors in his personnel file might cause "substantial unfair prejudice" to the very employer who was alleged to have discriminated.

In Riley vs. Taylor, Alito belittled the argument that an all-white jury would have an unfair impact on sentencing an African-American defendant by comparing statistical evidence about the prosecution's exclusion of blacks from juries in capital cases to an explanation of why a disproportionate number of recent U.S. presidents have been left-handed. When his decision was reversed by the full Third Circuit Court, the majority criticized Alito's decision, noting "to suggest any comparability to the striking of jurors based on their race is to minimize the history of discrimination against prospective black jurors and black defendants."


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