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In early 2016, Barack Obama nominated Myra Selby, a former Indiana Supreme Court Justice, to the United States Circuit Court of the United States Court of Appeals. In an unprecedented manner, this nomination by a sitting United States President was blocked by Senator Mitch McConnell. About a year later, President Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the seat that was supposed to be held by Myra Selby. In September of 2020, while early voting for the general presidential election had already begun, President Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett, after only two and a half years, as a judge to the United States Supreme Court.

It was Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dying wish that her vacancy be filled after the 2020 presidential election. In 1864, Supreme Court Justice Robert Taney died 27 days before the election, then President Abraham Lincoln deferred appointing a Justice to the court until after said election had passed.

Amy Coney Barrett’s legal profession consists of clerkships and over a decade spent in academia. Barrett did not spend much time in private practices nor does she have much trial experience. However, Barrett does have experience on the legal team that helped George W. Bush take the presidency away from Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election.

Barrett bills herself as Justice Antonin Scalia’s protégé. It should be noted that Scalia was a staunch originalist. Such that he based his view of the constitution solely within the realms that the authors of this agreement perceived it to have operated in during the late 18th century. Originalist don’t view the constitution as a living document which is to be modified under varied circumstances. The Originalist ideology is a cop out used by conservatives to rid themselves of the necessity to deal with issues surrounding race and sex. Scalia openly stated in one of his opinions that “the court was falling into the homosexual agenda and that constitutional rights shouldn’t be extended to non-Americans.”

Barrett’s judicial career, although short-lived, has exuded her neo conservative ideologies. Barrett is pro big business, pro white nationalist and pro patriarchy. This big business leaning was illustrated in Burlaka v. Contract Transport Services, where the plaintiff alleged that there was an overtime pay issue in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. However, Barrett ruled that these drivers were exempt from The Fair Labor Standards Act because their actions operated within interstate commerce and thus fell within the reach of the Motor Carrier Act, such that would exempt them for safety reasons from certain statutory provisions of the FSLA.

This ruling is nothing more than a republican bending to the will of big business interest and manipulating statutory laws to provide an exemption which were not foreseen or understood to be the purpose of said statute.

In Yafai v. Pompeo, a Yemeni born American citizen filed a visa application for his wife. The visa application was denied and the plaintiff alleged that his due process rights were violated. Barrett upheld the denial of the visa application based on a review that the two applicants tried to smuggle two children into the United States. It was proven that the review was based on false information being that the children alleged to have been smuggled were dead, and had died long ago in Yemen. The Court’s reasoning was that they couldn’t review a decision by a consular due to previous precedent. Barrett had the power to review the decision, but she simply didn’t due to a flawed small government doctrine which was used to turn a blind eye from discrimination and inequity.

In Smith v. Illinois, a plaintiff sued the Illinois Department of transportation alleging that they subjected him to a hostile environment. The plaintiff proved that they had denied him overtime pay and docked his hours. His superiors admittedly stated that “he was going to lose everything” and that he was a “stupid ass n****r.” Barrett ruled that his claim was unfounded and that he was not subjected to a hostile and racist environment because one “can’t prove an environment was hostile simply by proving one word was uttered.”

If your supervisor calls you a n****r and that doesn’t prove you are in a hostile work environment, I don’t know what will. Yet again we see Barrett’s willingness to turn a blind eye from discrimination by agents of the state.

Barrett’s ideological holdings are very troubling, being that they influence how she rules on different issues. Barrett is catholic. That is not an issue at all; one can be catholic, protestant, Muslim or Buddhist. That is irrelevant to one’s professional life. The issue is how one uses one’s alleged faith in the persecution of others. Barrett is a member of “The People of Praise,” a Christian sect which was founded in Indiana in 1971. This affiliation was never disclosed in senate disclosure forms. The women of these organizations are called handmaids. Women hold a secondary position to men, and have no deciding voice over their own faculties within this religious organization. One has to question that if Barrett holds these beliefs to be true, then how will she rule when those who put her in position want to have a say on a woman’s reproductive health and wellbeing.

Now that Barrett is on the court, one has to ask what more will she take. Trump placed her in the supreme court so as to rob Americans. Barrett will steal birthright citizenship from first generation Americans. Barrett will steal a woman’s control over her own reproductive health. Barrett will steal the protections held within the voting rights act. Barrett will try to steal the presidency from President Joe Biden if it makes its way to the court. The country has become blinded by race so much so that it can’t see that it is walking off a cliff.

Our Judiciary is in a precarious place. It is out of sync with the majority of American citizens. President Biden must take the initiative to remedy these circumstances by imposing restrictions on the court and/or expanding the court as was done in 1837 to coincide with the number of federal circuit court districts. If he doesn’t, the American citizen will suffer for decades to come.