First take on Bush's nomination of Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court: he's no John Roberts, unfortunately. The Advocate says that in 2001 he authored a decision that declared unconstitutional a public school district policy that prohibited harassment against students because of their sexual orientation or other factors. If we must force students into these government/educrate mis-run, taxpayer-money down-the-rathole monstrosities (known as "public education"), you'd think that policies prohibiting the bullying of gay kids, even if mostly ineffectual, would be a small positive. But noooo.
This may provide a misleading picture, or it may be an accurate indicator of who Alito is. We'll see. Harriet Miers, you're looking better and better!
Update: Some informative comments. I'm not
taking a position at this point, but I do note that some civil
libertarians believe the harassment policy Alito struck down was
overly broad. He wrote in Saxe v. State
College Area School District:
There is no categorical 'harassment exception' to the First Amendment's free speech clause....When laws against harassment attempt to regulate oral or written expression on such topics, however detestable the views expressed may be, we cannot turn a blind eye to the First Amendment implications.
It's also been noted that in another case, Shore Regional High School Board of Education v. P.S., Alito helped reverse a district court in order to uphold the claim of a student regularly called names such as "faggot," "gay," and "homo" that he was not afforded appropriate protection from harassment.
I'm not sure what to think, but I'm not accepting the activists'
charges without further evidence. So onward to the hearings!
--Stephen H. Miller