Another side of the soon-to-be nominee for the Supreme Court, from the local paper:
“If she’s being considered by a Republican administration, that means they think she’s going to be more conservative,” said Paolo Carozza, a Notre Dame law professor and director of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. “But people are reducing Amy to an ideological category instead of taking her for who she is: an intelligent, thoughtful, open-minded person.”
For Yelderman, it would be his second time in three years watching a judge he knows face scrutiny. He knew Justice Neil Gorsuch for 10 years before Gorsuch was confirmed in 2017, and he clerked for the justice last year.
“When there’s someone you hold in high regard, it’s a little bit terrifying knowing what is coming in the course of a modern confirmation fight, regardless of how high their character is,” Yelderman said.
Yelderman’s bottom-line assessment is clear: “She’s mind-blowingly intelligent, and she’s also one of the most humble people you’re going to meet. Judge Barrett is the complete package.”
There’s little doubt about Barrett’s popularity among her Notre Dame colleagues and students, who have voted her three times as professor of the year. A 1997 graduate of the law school, Barrett was recruited back in 2002 to join the faculty. She has continued teaching since being confirmed to the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in 2017.
Religious conservatives have embraced the potential nomination of Barrett, a staunch Catholic, as they predict a solid conservative voting record…
On the issue of faith and public criticism, Barrett last year referenced the example set by former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom she once clerked. At an event hosted by the Notre Dame Club of Washington, D.C., in 2019, Barrett was asked what she had learned from Scalia. She responded by saying Scalia “always was who he was.”
“He was a man of faith, he was a family man. He had a large family,” she responded. “He took a lot of criticism from many quarters for the values that he had and the choices that he made, his Catholicism and his faith. He had the strength to be who he was.”