Why Gorsuchs Alleged Sexist Classroom Comments Are So Troubling and Revealing

[demmiblue]

Source: Slate

On Monday, not long before the start of Senate confirmation hearings for Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Neal Gorsuch, NPR released a startling story: According to one of the judge’s former law students, Jennifer Sisk, Gorsuch once made an extraordinarily sexist classroom comment. Sisk alleges that in April 2016, Gorsuch “interrupted our class discussion to ask students how many of us knew women who used their companies for maternity benefits, who used their companies to—in order to have a baby and then leave right away.”
Mark Joseph Stern Mark Joseph Stern

When few students raised their hand, Gorsuch reportedly “became animated” and said, “Come on, guys. All of your hands should be up. Many women do this.” He later added, in Sisk’s words, that “companies have to ask these sort of questions at the interview so that companies can protect themselves.” Sisk brought her concerns to two deans, but it’s unclear whether they ever spoke to Gorsuch.

What should we make of these remarks? Sympathetic lawyers may be tempted to dismiss them as a law school hypothetical gone terribly awry, an unfortunate pedagogical misstep. But I find them to be quite revealing. The comments may seem out of character for Gorsuch himself, whose clerks, colleagues, and students have largely praised as a respectful professional. But they are not out of line with Gorsuch’s own opinions, which devalue the profound, constitutionally protected connection between women’s individual autonomy and economic equality. Gorsuch has already admitted that he holds corporations’ “religious freedom” in higher esteem then women’s liberty. So it is not at all surprising to discover that he also values corporate interests over a woman’s right to be free from pregnancy discrimination.

The starting point of any discussion about reproductive freedom and economic equality is Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which the court famously asserted that the “ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made this declaration the centerpiece of her dissent in Hobby Lobby, in which the court allowed for-profit corporations to deny women access to contraception through health insurance plans that they helped to pay for. Ginsburg explained how the decision undermined “a woman’s autonomous choice, informed by the physician she consults,” to control her own body. Rather than allowing women to make decisions about their reproductive health, Hobby Lobby allowed corporations to insert themselves into this highly personal decision.

Read more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/03/20/gorsuch_s_sexist_classroom_comments_are_troubling_and_revealing.html

[dchill]

1. "...so that companies can protect themselves."

Yes, those poor, underrepresented, unprofitable companies. The underlying bedrock of our ethical philosophy.

[Nitram]

2. FILIBUSTER!