Alito Condemns Fundamental Threats While Toning Down Rhetoric

US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito once again warned that Americans’ freedom of speech and religion are imperiled during what he called “troublous times.”

“Right now in the world outside this beautiful campus, troubled waters are slamming against some of our most fundamental principles,” Alito said Saturday to graduating students at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio.

The justices has frequently spoken publicly about what he sees as threats to First Amendment protections.

“Religious liberty is under attack in many places because it is dangerous to those who want to hold complete power,” Alito said in 2022, shortly after a divided Supreme Court overruled the right to an abortion. “It also probably grows out of something dark and deep in the human DNA—a tendency to distrust and dislike people who are not like ourselves.”

But during Saturday’s speech, Alito struck a more diplomatic tone, extolling the need for rational and civil discourse.

He warned that the graduating students might fell pressure to “endorse ideas you don’t believe or abandon core beliefs.”

“It will be up to you to stand firm,” Alito said.

Multiple Appearances

Alito is one of five current and former justices scheduled to speak publicly from May 10 to 14, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Sonia Sotomayor.

On Friday, Thomas decried “the nastiness and the lies” he and his wife Ginni have “had to endure” in recent years during an appearance at a conference of the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Point Clear, Alabama.

Thomas and Kavanaugh also both raised concerns about the Supreme Court’s growing emergency docket, saying it pressures justices to make quick rulings in controversial issues before developing a complete understanding of the facts.

“We’re appellate judges; we don’t like making snap decisions or decisions without lots of briefs or lots of lower court opinions,” Kavanaugh said Friday at a US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit conference in Austin, Texas. “It’s a challenge for us. I think we’re dealing with it as best as we can in an imperfect situation.”

Campus Unrest

In his commencement address, Alito took aim at the growing unrest at college campuses.

Those on the right have widely criticized university protests to conservative judges and speakers, as well as the recent unrest over the Israel-Hamas war.

Saying that higher learning should teach and embrace “reasoned debate,” Alito said that “today, very few colleges live up to that ideal.”

During the ceremony Saturday, Alito was awarded an honorary doctorate in Christian ethics from the university. He received a standing ovation for his majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the constitutional right to an abortion.

That warm reception contrasted with Friday’s commencement at Berkeley Law.

US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar’s speech to graduating students at Berkeley Law was interrupted by near-constant protests, at least some of which were pro-Palestinian.