Samuel Alito: Thought You'd Never Ask

The hearings were a snore. They were supposed to be. Alito had been brilliantly prepped, and he wasn't about to say anything revealing. Indeed, the thing was so scripted I'm tempted to think his wife's tears were premeditated.

What didn't the White House want Alito to reveal? That he's a hard-core rightie, who not only would overturn Roe v. Wade in a heartbeat but could generally be counted on to field anything hit his way by a white man with a government title or a badge.

You've read about some of his egregious rulings. Here's one you may have missed --- a civil rights case, commentary by Martin Garbus:

The decision was 10-1. Alito was the one. It was the entire sitting bench of the Third Circuit voting against him. I have never seen so lopsided a vote. Conservative judges, as well as liberal judges, excoriated Alito.

In this case, Barbara Sheridan, a head captain at the Hotel DuPont, said she was fired because she complained of sexual harassment. A jury agreed and awarded her substantial damages.

After Sheridan complained, the hotel started to keep meticulous records on her that were never kept on any other employee. They recorded, over a six-month period, every time she was a minute late, and they went to people she dealt with and recorded only her negative remarks.

Alito, in opposition to the ten judges, wanted to reverse the jury finding and dismiss her case--he chose to accept the employer's version of the facts rather than the employee's--attributing to Hotel DuPont reasons for firing her that were never told to her before she lost her job, but were offered as a rationale for the first time in court. Nonetheless, he praised the law she was suing under, noted it was a great advance and should be easily applied.

But Alito wanted to use Barbara Sheridan's case to do more. He wanted to change the burden of proof in civil rights discrimination cases--make the employee prove racial, gender or age discrimination, rather than placing the burden on the company to prove they had a valid reason for firing her. That seemingly small procedural change would reverse the result in well over 90 percent of discrimination suits.

The ten-member court would not go along with Alito's view of the facts or law; they found the hotel's testimony fraudulent, not worthy of belief, and unanimously said Alito's view of the law would make race, gender, disability or age anti-discrimination statutes meaningless.

Hmm. Maybe there was another reason his wife wept.....