Should Alito Pay For CAP?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Supreme CourtPersonally, I don’t really think so…
However….
CAP is short for Concerned Alumni of Princeton. It was founded in 1972 and went on to be dominated by purported racist and sexist philosophies that lamented the inclusion of more women and minorities into the Princeton fold.
But is that Alito’s fault? He left Princeton in 1972, so the transgressions that followed did not occur while he was there.
The conservative Committee For Justice has this take:
First, it is not at all clear that these comments represented official positions of CAP. Second, membership in a group does not mean that one agrees with all of its positions. Third, Alito’s personal (and decades old) views on coeducation, affirmative action, or any other issue are irrelevant to what kind of Justice he will be.
The first point I think we have yet to really know. The second point I agree with, although one would think that if CAP did have such a reputation, he’d not only want to distance himself from the organization, he’s also NOT want to list them on his now infamous 1985 job application.
However, the third thing is wrong, and it’s hard to read those words with a straight face. Decades old opinions do matter, especially if you consider that Alito was 35 when he applied for the 1985 job.
Should Alito be aligning himself with this organization?
Thoughts?
This entry was posted on Saturday, November 26th, 2005 and is filed under Supreme Court. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 26th, 2005 at 8:18 am
So, when he left Princeton in 1972 he became an alumnus.
November 26th, 2005 at 12:44 pm
But CAP is not the official association for alumni, is it? It looks like its sole raison d’etre was to bemoan what its members viewed as being bad for the school, which was diversity. Am I incorrect?
November 26th, 2005 at 1:37 pm
This is how it appears. Odd, no?
And yes, he became a member the year he left, but it’s NOT an official organization that everybody becomes a part of. He had to join, and even after it had its reputation, he listed it in job applications.
I just think it’s a bit weird.
November 15th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
Weeelllll….
Case in point: myself. I am not materially different in my thoughts, emotions, mental state, attitudes, viewpoints, beliefs from the “self” I was at 18. I’m nearly 60 now. [So there are a some possibles here: 1. I'm an aberration (probable, though not in this reasoning or situation) in that my views were fully formed at 18 and I'm so inflexible that they've never changed one jot in the intervening 4 decades; 2. I'm SO flexible that I've simply munged myself with myself over those decades and don't see the changes in between; 3. I'm lying (believe me when I tell you that's not possible because it would be just a totally silly waste of time); 4. I'm deluded (always a possibility - of oneself, one doesn't know, does one?)]
Truthfully, I believe that extrapolating from what I know about myself (I really have not changed my basal life opinions since I was a late-teen), and even allowing for gender being a factor, it’s more than probable that Justice Alito is pretty firmly identified in his own psyche with the ideations of a group he joined even though he was leaving the “area” of its inception. And he’s kept that relationship over the years, using the association on applications for employment.
One doesn’t do that if one isn’t in full agreement with the stated ideals of such an association. Unless there’s something else one is receiving from such and associative maneuver: money, reknown, referentials….