At a recent judicial confirmation hearing Senator Feinstein proceeded to criticize Judicial Nominee Amy Barrett because of her Catholic faith. Amy Barrett a graduate of Notre Dame Law School where she served as the Executive editor of the Notre Dame Law Review. Barrett served as a law clerk to Judge Lawrence Silberman of the US Court of Appeals. She then spent a year as clerk to Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the US Supreme Court from 1998–99. From 1999 to 2002, she practiced law at Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin in Washington, D.C.
In 2002, she began teaching at the Notre Dame Law School, where she was named a Professor of Law in 2010, and, from 2014–17, held the Diane and M.O. Miller Research Chair of Law. Barrett continues to teach as a sitting judge.
In a letter to Feinstein, John Jenkins President of University of Notre Dame wrote: "It is chilling to hear from a United States Senator that this [Catholic faith] might now disqualify someone from service as a federal judge. I ask you and your colleagues to respect those in whom 'dogma lives loudly'—which is a condition we call faith."
Christopher Eisgruber President of Princeton University asked U.S. Senators to "refrain from interrogating nominees about the religious or spiritual foundations of their jurisprudential views ... because religious belief is constitutionally irrelevant to the qualifications for a federal judgeship". [The no religious test clause of the constitution]
During her hearing, Barrett said: "It's never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge's personal convictions, whether they arise from faith or anywhere else, on the law."
This is the second time that one of Trump's nominees has come under fire for being a Christian. Not only is this a violation of the no religious test clause cited by Eisgruber above, it is also a violation of the 1st amendment rights of nominees, and the civil rights act of 1964 which banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. In short Senator Feinstein owes Professor Barrett an apology and she should resign her position as a Senator. No one who is a Christianophobe should be allowed to hold public office.
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