Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito addressed students at a commencement ceremony for the Franciscan University of Steubenville, a Catholic college in Ohio, by saying that support for freedom of speech is “declining dangerously.”
He appeared to point the remark at colleges’ response to recent campus protests that were in reaction to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
“Right now in the world outside this beautiful campus, troubled waters are slamming against some of our most fundamental principles,” Alito said. “Support for freedom of speech is declining dangerously.”
“Very few colleges live up to that ideal. This place is one of them … but things are not that way out there in the broader world,” Alito said.
Alito also warned of attacks on freedom of religion to the religious college.
“Freedom of religion is also imperiled,” he told the graduating students. “When you venture out into the world, you may well find yourself in a job, or community or a social setting when you will be pressured to endorse ideas you don’t believe, or to abandon core beliefs. It will be up to you to stand firm.”
Alito is the second-longest tenured Supreme Court associate justice and was one of two justices appointed to the court along with Chief Justice John Roberts by former President George W. Bush.
The conservative justice made major waves in 2022 when his draft opinion of the court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning the precedent set in Roe v. Wade was leaked to the press.
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While usually out of the public eye, Alito wasn’t the only Supreme Court justice who made an appearance outside of Washington, D.C., this weekend.
Clarence Thomas recently spoke out about criticism aimed at his family at a judicial conference on Friday night, saying that there were “nastiness and lies” directed toward him and his wife.
