Samuel Alito: Ruled against HS hazing
Samuel Alito: Minority Rights Champion By Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 1, 2005
DESPITE THE HISTRIONIC RHETORIC EMANATING FROM THE LEGAL LEFT on the apocalyptic consequences of his confirmation to the Supreme Court, Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. – in addition to being an eminently qualified Originalist jurist – has another attractive attribute: a history of favoring the rights of minorities. In his 15 years on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Alito has compiled a reputation for safeguarding the rights of blacks, religious minorities, and persecuted women that would be the envy of any left-winger.
As a federal appeals judge, Alito ruled in favor of Ronald A. Williams, a black man serving life in prison for first-degree murder, who had discovered evidence that one of his jurors was racially prejudiced and lied about this during the screening process. Since this evidence only came to light after Williams’ conviction, Alito gave him a new day in court.
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He also showed concern for homosexuals in a 2004 case filed against New Jersey’s Shore Regional High School Board of Education. Alito ruled the high school had failed in its duty to provide a student an adequate education by failing to protect him from years of brutal harassment, in which bullies regularly belittled his “perceived effeminacy,” slurring his assumed sexuality. Alito sent a clear message that he would have zero tolerance for any school district that looked the other way while students vicious_bullied one of their own, even if that hazing were conducted on the basis of homosexuality (real or imagined); gay kids have a right to education, too.
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(lots more to this article in Front Page Mag.)
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