For a man described as "the opposite of raucous," Judge Samuel Alito has caused his share of controversy.
Alito, whom President Bush has nominated to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, has attracted the ire of many critics, including some professors at his alma mater, Yale Law School. But those at Penn who know him -- like Law professor Geoffrey Hazard -- consider the U.S. Court of Appeals judge, whose court's jurisdiction includes Philadelphia, highly qualified for the job.
Hazard taught Alito at Yale and found him to be nonconfrontational, very thoughtful and highly respected, with "a nice sense of humor," but very quiet.
He taught Alito in a small seminar class of three students where their task was to teach the subject to him. He believes Alito is well-qualified to be a Supreme Court justice.
Despite his reserved personality, Alito has been the subject of acrimonious remarks from professors and students at Yale Law. Some are even working to keep him off the Supreme Court, as they did when alumnus Clarence Thomas and former professor Robert Bork were nominated, in 1990 and 1987 respectively.
Robert Gordon, a Yale Law professor, believes that Alito "is obviously intellectually qualified" but would be the second most conservative judge on the Supreme Court, after Clarence Thomas.
"I'm sorry, of course, that Bush has once more passed up the chance to govern for the benefit of the nation rather than the right wing of his party," Gordon wrote in an e-mail.
Frank Goodman, a professor at Penn's Law School, differs from Alito ideologically and would have preferred 10th Circuit Judge Michael McConnell if the field were limited to conservative nominees, but he considers Alito to be "an able judicial craftsman."
"I think he's an able, but very conservative, judge," Goodman said.
He emphasized that it is hard to determine the precise views of a lower-court judge but thinks Alito has issues with the ruling in Roe v. Wade -- which established abortion as a constitutional right -- because two of the four justices Alito admires most were the dissenters in that case.
The opposition of many at Yale to recent conservative nominees who attended their school has prompted questions about whether Yale is by nature a "liberal" school.
"It's fair to say that most of the faculty and students at Yale are pretty liberal," Gordon said, but he is not sure that the school's culture is significantly more liberal than that of most other law schools.
"Yale attracts a disproportionate number of students who are looking toward lives in public service, and public-interest, nongovernmental organization and international work," Gordon said. "Quite possibly, such students tend to be more liberal on average in political sympathies than those who have come to law school aspiring to careers in corporate-law practice."
To serve on the Supreme Court, Alito will have to be confirmed by the Senate after a set of hearings that are scheduled to take place in January.
Goodman would be "pretty astonished" if Alito were not confirmed, and he disagreed with those who are greatly disappointed by Alito's nomination.
"They would have rather had Harriet Miers than a competent conservative," Goodman said. "I'd rather have a competent conservative than an incompetent conservative."
