Amy Coney Barrett: Why 2 Notre Dame law school classmates oppose her Supreme Court nomination

“Judge Barrett and I were in the same class at the University of Notre Dame Law School,” said attorney Kathleen Ley Bruinsma about President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, who sits on the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals based in Chicago.

“She was in many of my classes over three years. In our first year, we were in the same small study group. She was always polite and respectful. And these are good things. But these interpersonal niceties are not relevant to the immense power she will [wield] over the daily lives of others if confirmed to the highest court in our country,” said Bruinsma, a member of the class of 1997.

While Notre Dame — the institution — is proud to have its first law school grad tapped for the Supreme Court, not all alums support her confirmation.

What is relevant, said Bruinsma, an attorney in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who worked at Chicago law firms earlier in her career, is Amy Coney Barrett’s views about laws and her reversal, once she became a nominee, about confirming a justice in a presidential election year.

Bruinsma said Barrett’s record from law school to the 7^th Circuit, “Decisions in which she has participated show that she does not agree that the law should apply equally to all individuals regardless of gender, race, creed, or color.

“As a woman, a mother, and a lawyer, I am troubled about the power that Judge Barrett will wield to limit women’s equal rights, children’s access to health care, and the equality of each of us under the law.

“Personal decency in the classroom, courtroom, or conference room are no compensation for the elimination of structural decency from our laws and our Constitution. Women, children, people of color, immigrants, and LGBTQ+ and voters are entitled to structural decency manifested in justice. If confirmed, Judge Barrett will not foster but rather limit and even dismantle the structural decency guaranteed by our founding documents.”

There is also Barrett’s change of heart about timing, said Bruinsma.

“In early 2016, she said Supreme Court justices should not be confirmed during the runup to a presidential election. At that time, with the presidential election still eight months away, she publicly opposed the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, arguing that it would be improper for the Senate to confirm the replacement of Justice Scalia with someone whose political views did not match his …”

“… Now, with voting for the 2020 presidential election already underway, Judge Barrett exposes her 2016 position as nothing more than self-serving political argle-bargle.

“Rather than similarly insist that her own confirmation hearings await the outcome of the presidential election, she is instead a willing participant in an accelerated confirmation process. With her actions, she reminds us that she is not to be trusted to respect precedent or principle. Such conduct is disqualifying for someone who aspires to sit on our highest court,” said Bruinsma in an e-mail.

An issue to put to rest is that Barrett’s stand regarding Roe v Wade and abortion is somehow mysterious. “You don’t know her view on Roe v Wade,” Trump said to Biden at the first debate.

In 2006, Barrett, a South Bend, Indiana, resident, signed an ad in the South Bend Tribune placed by the anti-abortion St. Joseph County Right to Life organization headlined, “We, the following citizens of Michiana, oppose abortion on demand and defend the right to life from fertilization to natural death.”

Deepa Iyer, a lawyer in Silver Springs, Maryland, said in an e-mail, Barrett “held extremely conservative beliefs” in law school and “that trajectory has continued throughout her career, and is reflected in her judicial record as well as in her signature on a 2006 St. Joseph County Right to Life’s newspaper advertisement that called for an end to the “barbaric legacy” of Roe v. Wade.

“Anyone concerned with the preservation of the rights of vulnerable people, including women, people of color, and immigrants, should be deeply alarmed by Judge Barrett’s possible confirmation to the highest court in the land,” said Iyer.

I asked Bruinsma about Barrett’s defenders who assert opponents are attacking her Catholic faith.

Said Bruinsma, “I am Catholic. So are Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor. And they interpret the Constitution correctly to include all individuals regardless of their color, race, creed, and income. Judge Barrett’s faith is not the basis of the strong objection to her nomination. It is her improper interpretation of the U.S. Constitution as reflected in her writings, speeches, and judicial record.”