88 University of Notre Dame faculty members are urging their fellow colleague Amy Coney Barrett to halt the nomination process that is likely to place her on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Barrett is a law professor at Notre Dame, a 177-year old private university known for its conservative, Catholic beliefs.
And yet these professors and other academics are asking Judge Coney Barrett to put a stop – albeit temporarily – to the rushed confirmation process, the outcome of which they acknowledge is “all but assured.”
But they say she should have the confirmation process stopped, noting that “voting for the next president is already underway,” and that “the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dying wish was that her seat on the court remain open until a new president was installed.”
“Finally,” they conclude, “your nomination comes at a treacherous moment in the United States. Our politics are consumed by polarization, mistrust, and fevered conspiracy theories. Our country is shaken by pandemic and economic suffering. There is violence in the streets of American cities. The politics of your nomination, as you surely understand, will further inflame our civic wounds, undermine confidence in the court, and deepen the divide among ordinary citizens, especially if you are seated by a Republican Senate weeks before the election of a Democratic president and congress. You have the opportunity to offer an alternative to all that by demanding that your nomination be suspended until after the election. We implore you to take that step.”
The full letter can be read here.