Amy Coney Barrett and Religious Conservatism

By: Hannah Ury, Staff Writer

Photo credit: Susan Walsh, AP Photo

In just four years, the Trump Presidency has selected two highly controversial Supreme Court nominations, and it is looking more and more like his second nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, will be confirmed and become a member of the Supreme Court. Thankfully, Barrett does not have any allegations of sexual assault, a rarity in today’s politics, but she does have her fair share of sources of controversy.

When taking a look at her past, it’s easy to like Barrett. She has seven children, two of whom are adopted from Haiti. She is a woman of faith, and she has done extensive work as a judge and a professor, and her students at Notre Dame say she is a great professor who never brought politics into the classroom. It is also refreshing to see a woman rise so easily to power in a career field dominated by men. However, do not expect the rights of women to advance at all should Barrett be confirmed.

Barrett would overturn Roe v. Wade if given the chance, and organizations like Planned Parenthood would be weakened even further than they already have been. Although Americans have little say in the process of picking Supreme Court Justices, the process certainly impacts the American people. To overturn Roe v. Wade would be a significant step backwards, and it would not accomplish the conservative goal of putting an end to abortions. Women would not stop having abortions, they would simply have illegal abortions, but conservatives don’t care. While their message is that they want to save lives, they disregard the millions of children in foster care, the women who will die from dangerous abortions, and so many other lives in the process. This disregard shows that their agenda is not truly about life at all, it is about controlling women’s bodies. If Barrett will not stand up against the control of women’s bodies by the government, what will she stand up for?

One thing Barrett certainly advocates is marriage between a man and a woman, and a man and a woman only. It is fair to assume that given the chance, she would undermine LGBTQ rights, and expand religious freedom to discriminate against LGBTQ people. In our legal system, it is perfectly fine to believe in one’s religion that marriage is between a man and a woman, or a woman and a woman, or whatever else your religious text may say. However, personal beliefs are just that, personal. It is fundamental to our Constitution that religion and state remain separate, and as an originalist interpreter of the Constitution, Barrett should be more than familiar with the concept. However, despite her familiarity, the rulings she has made as an appellate judge and will make on the Supreme Court reflect her religion nonetheless. 

The United States is not an anti-religious country, but we are, or at least claim to be, a country without an official religion. While it is okay for Supreme Court justices to have religious beliefs, it is unconstitutional for their religious views to leak into our legislature. Americans can expect to see a wave of religiously-driven decisions made by the Supreme Court in the future. Gay marriage, the right to choose, and many other landmark decisions could be impacted or even overturned under this new vehemently conservative Supreme Court. While Amy Coney Barrett might be a nice woman and an abundantly qualified candidate, she will leave a lasting impact on America, and it won’t be a good one.

Announcement from Asian Student Alliance

We, as the leadership of Asian Student Alliance, request that our learning environments remain inhospitable towards hateful speech, including but not limited to:

●      “Wuhan virus”

●      “Chinese/China virus”

●      “Kung flu”

●      Threats or demands that individuals “go” or “return” to other countries

 While we understand the importance of freedom of speech and expression, we believe these terms endanger the safety and wellbeing of our students. These terms create association between a deadly disease and a specific identity, fueling stigmatization that puts an entire community at risk. 

 We ask that faculty prevent, address, and eliminate the use of these terms in favor of scientific, universally-accepted names such as COVID-19, etc. This will ensure a safer, more productive learning environment for everyone. Furthermore, this will demonstrate our university’s intolerance towards hate, bias, prejudice, and racism.

 We also stress the importance of reporting incidents in which these terms are used, regardless of whether they are targeted at a specific individual/group. Only by reporting can we obtain the data necessary to form effective solutions in the future. The bias incident form for Regis University can be accessed using the following link: https://cm.maxient.com/reportingform.php?RegisUniv&layout_id=4

 As a Jesuit institution, Regis University is committed to cura personalis—encouraging care and concern for the whole person—and we believe our request will help uphold this value in our learning environments. We are grateful, in advance, for your efforts to promote equality at Regis University. 

Regis University Asian Student Alliance

Colin Kaepernick and the importance of his message

By: Rose Ferrie, Staff Reporter

For those of you who didn’t know, this past week was Social Justice Week; there were many events pertaining to issues like feminism, anti-hate speech and sustainability. I attended an event regarding police brutality and Black Lives Matter. The Colin Kaepernick talk was a forum to open up the discussion about Black Lives Matter and police brutality, the criminalization of black men and men of color, and what Colin’s actions did for them.

I got to talk to Awah Tilong, the President of BSA, and a few of their members before the conversation to see what their goals were for this event. She said she wanted this to be a space for a productive conversation, for people to speak their truth, and be comfortable to disagree. Minds were not going to be changed in one conversation, maybe not ever, but this was a place to educate and increase apathy.

Once people had settled in, Damien Thompson, faculty advisor of BSA and professor here at Regis, set some ground rules for the night. This was a safe space, speak from the heart without judgement, listen from the heart with no need to agree, don’t rehearse your argument truly listen, be mindful of everyone and let all have a turn to speak.

This program was broken into 3 sections: “speed dating” (fast two person conversations), small group discussion, and a big group discussion. Talking one-on-one with people and asking how they felt about the Kaepernick situation was eye opening. One idea stuck with me and I have continued to ponder it: Did Kaepernick’s kneeling controversy end up distracting people from his initial purpose of raising awareness for police brutality against Black people? He may have had good intentions but his act of kneeling was twisted into a sign disrespect to America and its troops, his purpose was often lost in the media. He was able to disturb millions of Americans weekly Sunday rituals of watching Sunday football, he rocked that boat and started a conversation, just maybe not the one he was hoping for.

The conclusion of the night was that the criminalization of Black boys and men is a serious issue and Colin Kaepernick leveraged his social positioning to make a statement by kneeling during our national anthem. This situation was ostracized from being a peaceful protest for police brutality to disrespecting America and American troops. We are so patriotic that we disregard the racism right in front of us. Racism is rampant and blatantly so in the acts of brutality that affect African American men and boys as well as other men and boys of color. I do not wish to change anyone’s feelings about this situation, the goal of this conversation was not to prove a right or wrong but to get to the root issue: not every American is equal. The importance of what Kaepernick did and what this talk concluded with is that we need to address the attack on boys and men of color. They are being killed because of what they look like by people who should be protecting them. They are Americans and we need to live up to “liberty and justice for all”.