[Mb-civic] Roberts Resisted Women's Rights - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

<>Roberts Resisted Women's Rights
1982-86 Memos Detail Skepticism

By Amy Goldstein, R. Jeffrey Smith and Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 19, 2005; Page A01

Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. consistently opposed legal and 
legislative attempts to strengthen women's rights during his years as a 
legal adviser in the Reagan White House, disparaging what he called "the 
purported gender gap" and, at one point, questioning "whether 
encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."

In internal memos, Roberts urged President Ronald Reagan to refrain from 
embracing any form of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment pending in 
Congress; he concluded that some state initiatives to curb workplace 
discrimination against women relied on legal tools that were "highly 
objectionable"; and he said that a controversial legal theory then in 
vogue -- of directing employers to pay women the same as men for jobs of 
"comparable worth" -- was "staggeringly pernicious" and "anti-capitalist."

Roberts's thoughts on what he called "perceived problems" of gender bias 
are contained in a vast batch of documents, released yesterday, that 
provide the clearest, most detailed mosaic so far of his political views 
on dozens of social and legal issues. Senators have said they plan to 
mine his past views on such topics, which could come before the high 
court, when his confirmation hearings begin the day after Labor Day.

Covering a period from 1982 to 1986 -- during his tenure as associate 
counsel to Reagan -- the memos, letters and other writings show that 
Roberts endorsed a speech attacking "four decades of misguided" Supreme 
Court decisions on the role of religion in public life, urged the 
president to hold off saying AIDS could not be transmitted through 
casual contact until more research was done, and argued that promotions 
and firings in the workplace should be based entirely on merit, not 
affirmative action programs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/18/AR2005081802041.html

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