Lambda Legal sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee urging its members to oppose Judge Amy Coney Barrett. The rushed confirmation hearings began today for President Trump's nominee to fill the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the United States Supreme Court, while voting for the next president and one-third of the Senate is already underway.
"Judge Amy Coney Barrett's record is filled with red flags that should disqualify her from sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court. Given her restrictive, reactionary judicial philosophy, Judge Barrett is unfit to fill the seat, much less the shoes, of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg," said Sasha Buchert, Senior Attorney at Lambda Legal.
Judge Barrett's record demonstrates that she would immediately threaten the Affordable Care Act, LGBTQ rights, racial equity, and reproductive rights:
- In 2016, Barrett gave a presentation as a professor where she expressed that marriage should not be viewed as a fundamental right for same-sex couples and instead should be decided on a state-by-state basis. This approach erases the duty of courts to enforce everyone's constitutional rights, and if followed, it would deny equal liberty, dignity, and autonomy to LGBTQ people, women, racial minorities, and other marginalized communities historically denied those rights.
- In a separate lecture while discussing issues that could soon be before the Supreme Court, Barrett took the troubling position that transgender people are not protected by federal protections against sex discrimination. Justice Gorsuch explained why her view is wrong in the Supreme Court's Bostock v. Clayton County decision this past June.
- She has showed her lack of concern for racial equity when she denied rehearing of a decision that allowed a company to segregate its employees by race, violating a core tenant of Brown v. Board of Education.
- Judge Barrett has also misgendered and disrespected transgender people by saying that "people will feel passionately on either side about whether physiological males who identify as females should be permitted in bathrooms especially where there are young girls present." Inflammatory and dangerous comments like this ignore and perpetuate the risk of assault and discrimination against transgender people.
This week's confirmation hearing will include Senators asking Judge Barrett questions on Tuesday, October 13 and Wednesday, October 14. A committee vote is tentatively scheduled for October 22.
Join us Wednesday, Oct. 14, at noon ET, 11 a.m. CST, for the next Lambda Legal Facebook Live discussion on the fight to protect marriage equality, the battle for racial justice, and what to expect next in Judge Barrett's confirmation hearing.
Lambda Legal, a 501( c )( 3 ) nonprofit, is a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and everyone living with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work. We do not charge our clients for legal representation or advocacy, and we receive no government funding ( in fact, we frequently sue the government on behalf of our plaintiffs ).
