Critic says Alito 'unfit' to serve

Just hours after the Senate Judiciary Committee concluded its confirmation hearings — with Samuel Alito '72 poised to win the support of the committee — one of Alito's most outspoken critics called him out of touch with mainstream America and unfit to serve as a Supreme Court justice.

Stephen Dujack '76, a longstanding critic of the conservative alumni group to which Alito belonged, said, "I think he's woefully unaware of what it's like to be in this country and not be a white male. That makes him unfit to sit on the Supreme Court."

Dujack, who spoke Friday at a College Democrats event in McCormick Hall, asserted that the nominee's past association with the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP) casts doubt on his ability to serve all Americans fairly. "How can we be sure that he will offer women and minorities full equality under the law?" Dujack asked.

Currently an environmental writer, Dujack covered CAP for the Princeton Alumni Weekly in the 1980s and recently wrote about the group for the Los Angeles Times, the Newark Star-Ledger and The Daily Princetonian. (Read his 'Prince' op-ed.)

Dujack was originally slated to testify before the judiciary committee Friday, but he was abruptly removed from the witness list last week after a 2003 Los Angeles Times oped he wrote was circulated by the office of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.). In the column, Dujack defended a quote by his late grandfather, Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, comparing the slaughter of animals for food to a perpetual Holocaust. (See story.)

Speaking today about his removal from the list, Dujack said he was "slammed" by members of the media, including conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh and Internet newshound Matt Drudge. Dujack accused Drudge of taking quotes from his oped out of context by saying that Dujack had compared eating hamburgers to the Holocaust.

He called the incident "character assassination" and assured the roughly 50 audience members that he was not trying to do the same to Alito.

Alito's CAP membership, which he mentioned in a 1985 job application for Ronald Reagan's Justice Department, has been a deeply contentious issue since it was first reported in November. (See story.)

Alito disavowed the group, which critics describe as a far-right organization opposed to coeducation and affirmative action, during hearings this week. (See story.) He said he did not know about the highly controversial content in CAP's magazine, Prospect, and does not recall attending meetings or otherwise participating in the group. Reviews of CAP documents indicate that Alito was not a founding member or major contributor.

But Dujack refused to allow Alito to distance himself from the group, saying: "CAP for its last 10 years was a magazine. There were no events to go to ... [Alito was] as much a member as anyone else, and he's claiming fealty to this organization in 1985."

Calling Prospect "the 'Hustler' of conservatism," Dujack said, "It doesn't make any difference whether he was active in it. What would people be saying if they found out he subscribed to 'Hustler'?"

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Princeton's cancer: Concerned Alumni's many sins

Dujack vehemently decried Prospect's content as "disgusting." He cited numerous examples from the magazine, including references to gay students as "campus lispers," a Hispanic dean as "Señor" and a staff member of the women's center as "the wicked witch of the women's center."

"I don't want to use the word sexism because it's not strong enough," Dujack said. "Misogyny is what it was."

But Dujack made it clear that he does not believe Alito subscribes to the opinions espoused in Prospect, which was published through 1985, when Alito mentioned his membership in the job application. "I don't believe that Sam Alito is a racist or that he is a sexist," Dujack said.

Though CAP was largely defunct by 1986, Dujack stood by an assertion he made in a CAP "obituary" he wrote for the 'Prince' (see story, left), in which he warned that the group was a "cancer" that would potentially return. (Read his article.)

"I think CAP could reconstitute itself at any time," he said.