Alito: No Women and Minorities at Princeton?
What are we to make of Samuel Alito's membership in a group called Concerned Alumni of Princeton?
Here's what the Times has to say about CAP:
"The group had been founded in 1972, the year that Judge Alito graduated, by alumni upset that Princeton had recently begun admitting women. It published a magazine, Prospect, which persistently accused the administration of taking a permissive approach to student life, of promoting birth control and paying for abortions, and of diluting the explicitly Christian character of the school."
CAP also protested the number of minority students at Princeton, relative to the number of alumni children.
Again, from the Times: "A brochure for Princeton alumni warned, 'The unannounced goal of the administration, now achieved, of a student population of approximately 40 percent women and minorities will largely vitiate the alumni body of the future.'"
A couple of thoughts.
It's hard not to see such sentiments as racist. There doesn't appear to be any argument why a student body of 40 percent women and minorities would be wrong for Princeton. (In fact, it's hard to imagine such an argument that wouldn't be racist and sexist.) But the implication that such a student body composition is, on its face, a bad thing reeks of racism.
It may also be possible to throw anti-Semitism into the mix. That phrase, "diluting the explicitly Christian character of the school," is alarming. But to be fair, it's possible to imagine an argument in behalf of a Christian tradition that isn't anti-Semitic, and the Times doesn't delve into this aspect of the story.
This article does remind one of how nasty the Reagan conservatives of the 1980s really were. Such extreme sentiments were hardly rare, and they were fueled by the Reagan administration. That's one reason why Alito listed his membership in CAP in a 1985 appplication for promotion when he was working in the Reagan administration.
Yes, this happened a long time ago. But Alito's membership in the group is relevant to his judicial philosophy, and senators should question him about it during his confirmation hearings.
