I've discussed Scalito and his involvement in CAP
here and
here and, derivatively,
here.
Armando links to
this article, which confirms my suspicion that there is much much more to say about this issue:.
CAP, as it was known, was founded in 1972 by Alito's classmate T. Harding Jones and two wealthy blue-blood alumni. Jones, who became the first editor of Prospect, the group's widely distributed magazine, told the New York Times that "coeducation has ruined the mystique and the camaraderies that used to exist," and that it would prove to be "a very unfortunate thing."
This is the first issue, and thus the first issue for Scalito to answer to under oath to Congress. The question (and it's available free-of-charge to any member of the press or congress with the balls/labia to take it up. Aka "Nobody") is this: "Judge Scalito: When you joined CAP, were you unaware that your classmate and the editor of "Prospect" had told the New York Times that co-education at Princeton would "ruin the mystique" of your education? If so, why did you list CAP on a job application? If not, why not, given that CAP's views were public, well-known, and extreme? Did you not read the NYT? For how long have you not read the NYT? Do you get along well in your world without reading the NYT? What in God's name DO you read?
Seeking "a more traditional undergraduate population," CAP warned that "a student population of approximately 40 percent women and minorities will largely vitiate the alumni body of the future."
Next question (still no charge): Do you know what "vitiate" means? It entered our language through French, so you probably don't. It means (among other things) "to corrupt morally." Do you feel "vitiated" by all the minorities and women at Princeton? If so, why? If not, why not?
The group supported a permanent quota that would keep the female student population at only 1,000 out of a total of 4,400.
Next question: are you gay? (OK, ok, give me a break. We're talking realpolitik here. If Kerry can use Cheney's daughter...).
Without irony, CAP simultaneously supported "affirmative action" for athletes and children of alumni.
I'm going to start charging now. Any congressperson or member of the mainstream press must CREDIT catchingflies (ALL bloggers at catchingflies, whether they've blogged in the last fifty years or not, whether they enjoy watching their fellow blogger twist in the wind as I have for the last MONTH or not) if they ask the next question at any time in the next five months: Do you consider "legacy" admissions more, less, or equally unfair as "affirmative action" for all the minorities and women? Does the presence of wealthy inbred athletes at Princeton "vitiate" the alumni?
In fairness, Alito was not a leader of CAP and didn't formulate its policies, which also included championing a more "balanced" faculty and a better football team.
"Balanced" faculty? Hmmm. Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah! David Horowitz and the ABOR! So, next question: Do you support David Horowitz and the ABOR? (Follow up (free of charge): how the did you turn out to be such a right-wing asswipe if the faculty at Princeton were so liberal?)
But he did decide to join and later tout his membership in the group, which existed primarily to oppose the presence of women and minorities.
I can't charge for this one: "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you no sense of decency?"
Most alumni saw CAP differently than Alito did, regardless of political persuasion. Bill Bradley, the basketball star and future Democratic U.S. senator, who graduated in 1965, was a member of the initial CAP board. He quit in disgust after Prospect's first two issues.
Question for Scalito: In how many seasons did Bill Bradley score over 1000 points? (Follow up: do you like Basketball? If so, why? If not, do you like figure skating?)
In 1975, Bill Frist, the future Republican Senate majority leader, was part of an alumni panel that concluded CAP "presented a distorted, narrow, and hostile view of the university that cannot help but have misinformed and even alarmed many alumni."
This question is free to Bill Frist, quite costly to all other members of the senate: "Were you misinformed and alarmed by what you knew of CAP? Why did Bill Frist know so much about it in 1975? How much did you know about it when you joined? What year did you join? What year did you list it on your job application? Oh, right...sorry. 1985! Yes, I remember now: 1985. Only TEN YEARS after Bill Frist basically called it a right-wing freakshow."
Prospect hectored women and minority students unceasingly while calling for a halt to the ongoing shift at Princeton away from "a body of men, relatively homogeneous in backgrounds," in the words of CAP co-founder Shelby Cullom- Davis.
"Do you, Scalito, advocate a shift away from men's bodies? Or do you incline toward men's bodies?"
Perhaps out of frustration, the magazine became increasingly reactionary. "In my day (the dean of students) would have been called to task for his open love affair with minorities" wrote one alumnus in the magazine in 1980.
Question for Scalito: "Do you know what that man was referring to by "in my day"? How old was he when he was writing? Do you think he was referring to a) lynchings, b) rigged criminal proceedings accusing the Dean of miscegenation, or c) the Princeton Paddle? (Follow up: do you own a "Princeton paddle"?)
In 1984 Prospect noted that a female coal miner who had won her job through a discrimination suit had died in a mining accident. The item concluded, "Sally Frank, take note." Frank was a former student who successfully sued to open the doors of all-male eating clubs at the university to women.
Question (I'm charging for this one): what do you think CAP meant when it wrote "Sally Frank, Take Note" in its official publication? What year did it write that? In what year did you tout your membership in CAP to the Reagan Administration? Do you want to kill any women and make it look like a mining accident?
Samuel Alito touted his membership in CAP at the same time Prospect was pushing these destructive messages. This fact should trouble all who cherish the right to equality before the law. Alito needs to be forthcoming about his involvement in CAP, and the Senate must carefully examine this record. Otherwise, Americans won't have the information they need to judge for themselves whether Alito would uphold the rights of all.
Yeah, yeah. You know nobody is going to pay any fucking attention to this, don't you? (That's a question I want someone to ask in the pressroom. I want the press to look into their own cameras and write on their own notepads, saying: You know we've been torturing prisoners for four years, don't you? And that the NSA has been spying on citizens on orders from our president, right? And that Samuel Alito believes things that he won't admit to believing, yeah? And you know we could be doing a lot more to bring this to light, but that we're tired and underpaid? You know this, right?......).
The point is: Alito cannot be confirmed, and his professed membership in CAP is ALL ANYONE NEEDS TO MAKE THE CASE.