Profile of Amy Coney Barrett.
Supreme Court nominee is Notre Dame professor
The last time Amy Coney Barrett was nominated for a federal court judgeship, her deep religious convictions came under attack from Democrats who voted almost in lockstep against her.
Now that President Donald Trump has nominated her again – this time for a seat on the Supreme Court that she may hold for decades to come – Democrats once again are sure to vote against her. But not because of her religion.
Barrett told Trump on Saturday she was “deeply honored” by the confidence he’d placed in her. “I love the United States and I love the United States Constitution,” Barrett said in remarks in the White House Rose Garden, adding she was “truly humbled by the prospect of serving on the Supreme Court.”
A day after Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was honored at the U.S. Capitol, Barrett paid homage to Ginsburg as a trailblazer for women. The late justice “not only broke glass ceilings, she smashed them,” Barrett said.
Barrett, 48, proved to be a Teflon nominee in 2017 for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. Not only did she deflect Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s concern that “the dogma lives loudly within you,” but her Catholic and conservative backers used the phrase on T-shirts, tote bags and coffee mugs in a sign of support.
This time, her nomination to the seat held for 27 years by Ginsburg – a women’s rights icon and the subject of far more paraphernalia – makes Barrett’s nomination a potential turning point for the nation’s judicial system. So rather than focusing on religion, opponents are warning of possible Supreme Court reversals on abortion, guns, health care and more.
“Even in her short time on the bench, (Barrett) has very concerning rulings that relate to important issues, like protections for LGBTQ Americans, immigrants, the Affordable Care Act, and abortion rights,” Elizabeth Wydra, president of the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center, said earlier this week. “So we should be concerned about this particular nominee.”
But Barrett’s allies and colleagues herald her as an almost perfect choice based on her judicial opinions, academic writings and personal life as the mother of seven children.
“She is a respected scholar, an awardwinning teacher, a razor-sharp lawyer, a disciplined and diligent jurist, and a person of the highest character,” Rick Garnett, founding director of Notre Dame Law School’s Program on Church, State, and Society, said in 2018 when Barrett competed for the nomination that went to Brett Kavanaugh.
Barrett, born in New Orleans, has been winning kudos like that for decades. Every living law clerk who worked at the Supreme Court during its 1998 term signed a letter in 2017 endorsing her appeals court nomination, including those who worked for liberal justices.
That popularity has been evident as well at Notre Dame Law School, where Barrett, an alumni, has been named professor of the year three times since 2002.
“She’s mind-blowingly intelligent, and she’s also one of the most humble people you’re going to meet,” said professor Stephen Yelderman, a recent law clerk for Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch. “Judge Barrett is the complete package.”
‘Kingdom of God’
In 2006, Barrett described her vision for being a “different kind of lawyer.”
Addressing Notre Dame Law School’s 2006 graduating class, she reminded the students that their legal careers are but a means to an end: namely, building the “kingdom of God.”
“If you can keep in mind that your fundamental purpose in life is not to be a lawyer, but to know, love and serve God, you truly will be a different kind of lawyer,” she said.
Barrett’s past membership in the religious group People of Praise has been scrutinized by national media outlets. The group dates to the early 1970s and grew out of the “charismatic” movement, sharing some traits of Protestant Pentecostal groups. It has about 1,700 adult members today.
If her religious views are less controversial this time around, her opinions and writings on abortion and other hot-button issues will take center stage.
Barrett has written Supreme Court precedents are not sacrosanct, which liberals have interpreted as a threat to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide.
‘Value of human life’
A former member of the University of Notre Dame’s “Faculty for Life,” Barrett signed a 2015 letter to Catholic bishops that affirmed the “teachings of the Church as truth.” Among those teachings: the “value of human life from conception to natural death” and marriagefamily values “founded on the indissoluble commitment of a man and a woman.”
Those views give anti-abortion groups hope that with her vote, the Supreme Court will uphold efforts by states to further restrict abortion rights – and potentially overrule Roe v. Wade some day.
“This is a turning point for the nation in the fight to protect its most vulnerable, the unborn,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which opposes abortion, said upon Ginsburg’s death last week.
In a 2013 speech at Notre Dame on the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Barrett said the ruling “essentially permitted abortion on demand.” But she declared it “very unlikely” the Supreme Court ever would overturn its core protection of abortion rights, according to coverage of her remarks in university publications.
“The fundamental element, that the woman has a right to choose abortion, will probably stand,” the student newspaper The Observer quoted her saying. “The controversy right now is about funding. It’s a question of whether abortions will be publicly or privately funded.”
Beyond abortion, liberals are most concerned about Barrett’s effect on health care, specifically the Affordable Care Act. The law is coming before the court again in November, with Texas leading a group of states seeking to strike it down. If confirmed by the Senate
before Election Day, she could be on the bench to hear that case a week later.
‘Impressive as they come’
During her three years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, which includes Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, Barrett has ruled in cases involving abortion, sexual assault, guns, race and immigration. Among them:
Abortion: Barrett signed a dissent indicating she would have reheard Indiana’s defense of a law banning abortions based on sex, race or disability. Indiana did not seek the appeals court’s review, but the dissent nevertheless referred to “eugenics” and said “none of the (Supreme) Court’s abortion decisions holds that states are powerless to prevent abortions designed to choose the sex, race, and other attributes of children.” The high court later refused to consider the state’s appeal.
Sexual assault: Barrett and two other judges reversed a lower court ruling and allowed a male student to sue Purdue University for suspending him after finding him guilty of sexual assault. The student’s “allegations raise a plausible inference that he was denied an educational benefit on the basis of his sex,” she wrote.
Guns: Barrett dissented when the court upheld a decision restricting the Second Amendment rights of a felon convicted of mail fraud. She said nonviolent offenders should not lose their constitutional right to firearms possession.
Immigration: In dissent, Barrett defended the Trump administration’s rule denying immigrants permanent residence if they become regular users of public assistance.
Race: Barrett helped to block the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s effort to stop an employer from transferring Chicago-area employees based on their race or ethnicity.
Age discrimination: Barrett ruled that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act does not apply when policies impact plaintiffs unintentionally. The ruling went against a 58-year-old job applicant who lost out to someone half his age when the company sought to hire a person with less than seven years’ experience.