Law professors rip Alito for demanding 'safe space' from critics: 'Can’t bear others exercising free speech'

In an extraordinary move, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito last week made an effort to preempt a then-forthcoming ProPublica investigation that shed light on a trip the conservative judge took with a Republican donor who later had cases before the court.

For University of Michigan Law School professor Leah Litman and New York University School of Law professor Melissa Murray, Alito’s op-ed, which appeared in the “ideologically friendly” Wall Street Journal, was “just the latest example of Alito’s insistence on enjoying the country’s respect even when he fails to act respectably.”

The pair shared their opinion on Alito’s prebuttal in an article published Sunday by the Los Angeles Times.

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Alito’s Wall Street Journal op-ed, described by Litman and Murray as “indignant” and “bizarre,” included a reference to “two charges” levied against the justice, as well as a blanket declaration that “neither charge is valid” — though, as Litman and Murray write, Alito himself “does not dispute that he flew on a private jet and enjoyed a luxury fishing vacation in Alaska free of charge.”

Instead of replying to a list of questions ProPublica journalists sent to Supreme Court spokesperson Patricia McCabe, Alito “opted to bitterly and preemptively complain about the story in an ideologically friendly outlet,” Litman and Murray write.

“Alito appears aggrieved that the public has the audacity to criticize him,” the pair noted, adding that the justice’s “reaction is entirely consistent with the worldview he has revealed within and beyond his jurisprudence time and time again.”

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“Because even though Samuel Alito is a Supreme Court justice with lifetime tenure and all the power that position entails, he still wants more,” Litman and Murray wrote.

Arguing that Alito seems “to believe that he and the court are so thoroughly supreme that they must be free of even a whiff of public criticism,” the law professors slammed him for “[demanding] perpetual public and professional affirmation — a safe space, if you will, where he is protected from micro-aggressions, bathed in praise and consistently depicted as reasonable and judicious regardless of whether he actually is.”

"And when his reception falls short of that, he lashes out at his critics no matter who they are,” the law professors added.

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“The man who represents an institution charged with interpreting the 1st Amendment can’t bear others exercising their free speech rights to criticize him,” Litman and Murray declared. “Instead, he uses his stature and appearances to take potshots at those bold enough to question an institution that, as we keep learning, is loath to observe rules or restrictions”

Turning their attention to the “conservative legal movement” as a whole, Litman and Murray bemoaned Alito as “a prominent face of that project, who insists on the prerogatives of an emperor-king, among them unstinting general adulation and complete insulation from critique.”

“It’s no wonder the court’s public standing is in trouble,” the law professors added. “Some of the justices seem to be letting the term ‘supreme’ go to their heads.”

Read the full op-ed at the Los Angeles Times.

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