Conservatives under siege Supreme Court Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh give advice to students – Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett told a conservative conference that the best way to resist the kind of “poisonous hostility” that led to conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s death is to “show grace and strength in the face of hatred.” “Fighting poison with poison doesn’t work,” Barrett remarked at the Federalist Society’s annual black tie gala on Nov. 6. Conservatives under siege Supreme Court Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh give advice to students
“It leads to more poison.” Barrett and Justice Brett Kavanaugh were the headline speakers at the important conservative legal organization’s dinner where they received questions from a moderator, including some that had been submitted by students. Although conservatives have a supermajority on the Supreme Court and dominate the other two branches of governments, the questions focused not on their triumphs but on how to deal with feeling under threat.
One student inquired what the justices would say to people who feel Kirk’s murder had a chilling effect on conservative speech on campus.Barrett said people should not stay silent but rather follow the example of Kirk’s wife, who forgave her husband’s murderer, and “fight fire with strength and with grace.” Asked for advice for conservative women at law schools who feel marginalized because of their opinions, Barrett said they should not be scared to be “countercultural.”
Referencing her seven children, Barrett said she’s done “lots of counter-cultural things in the course of my life.”“In truth, being a conservative woman, in a law school particularly, takes a lot of courage and independence and in many ways shows more feminism than just falling into some predetermined vision of what a woman should be,” she said. Conservatives under siege Supreme Court Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh give advice to students
When the questioning went to the criticisms and even death threats the judges themselves have encountered, Kavanaugh said he tries to follow the examples of role models like the late Justice Antonin Scalia who showed “what it meant to withstand withering criticism, what it meant to be fearless.”Justice Samuel Alito, who was in the audience, has likewise showed courage “and the willingness to stand up for principle even when it comes at a cost, a big cost,” Kavanaugh added. Conservatives under siege Supreme Court Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh give advice to students
