Left: Amy Coney Barrett
Image by Molly Butter from mediamatters.org
By—
Frontal Lobe
and
Diencephalon
Who Amy Coney Barrett is, what she stands for, and why she got put forward
Amy Coney Barret Jan 20, 2021 10:40 PST
Photos by: (hover to see more)
Possibilities of why she was nominated
Donald J. Trump probably chose Amy Coney Barrett because in his campaign in 2016 he kept on saying that he would nominate justices who would vote to turn over landmark cases. He also successfully nominated Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. They most likely supported his statements in order for Trump to choose them.
Barrett is a conservative in the Catholic church. Some people who know or are familiar with her think that she would overturn Roe v. Wade (which is an important decision made by the U.S. Supreme Court, when they said that the Constitution of the United States protects a pregnant mother’s freedom to choose to have an abortion without a government preventing them to do so).
Her relationship with Antonin Scalia
On September 26, 2020, in the White House, Barrett said, “His judicial philosophy is mine too,” referring to Justice Scalia. Barrett said that she would not be a complete copy of Justice Scalia, though: "I want to be careful to say that if I'm confirmed you would not be getting Justice Scalia, you would be getting Justice Barrett. And that's so because originalists don't always agree and neither do textualists."
Scalia was famously friendly with the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She had said he was one of the few people who made her laugh.
Trends
Some trends that are going up for Amy Coney Barrett include the number of people who dislike her, but many people also agree with what she believes in. Most of those people are Trump supporters because he was the one who nominated her. Something that relates to that is how many supporters Trump has. The amount of Trump supporters seems to be decreasing, according to FiveThirtyEight. So, that leads to the question, does that also affect Barrett’s supporters?
Unanswered questions
Is there any other reason why Trump chose Barrett; did it have anything to do with her gender or her age? Possibly what her beliefs are? What does he see in her that others don’t?
Do Trump’s actions affect how other people think of Barrett? Barrett was most likely nominated by Trump because she agrees with what he does. If she disagreed with what he believed in, it would be most unlikely he would choose her. If Trump’s supporters decrease, how will that affect Barrett, and vice versa?
​
Why did Barrett support Scalia so much? Why not anyone else, among all the Supreme Court justices? Is it that she admired him for some reason, or is it just a coincidence?
​
If Amy Coney Barrett wasn’t surrounded by Republicans, would she still be one? Did being surrounded by them really have no impact on her opinion, or was it just because of her environment that her opinion is what it is now?
Ethics
Is it right that Trump chose Coney Barrett and not any other person out of all the others who could be fit for the position? Is it right that Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett right after Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away?
Different perspectives
Some people think that Amy Coney Barrett’s rise is a threat to some families since she doesn’t support gays and lesbians. There are people who like Trump for their own reasons, and there are people who don’t like Trump for other reasons. As we have already said, people who support Donald Trump most likely support Amy Coney Barrett because her beliefs are similar to his. On the other hand, there are also lots of people who like and agree with her opinions and ideas, including her former students. Some say: Amy Coney Barrett was our professor. She’ll serve America as well as she served her students.
For some, she is a rising threat because of what she supports and believes in. For others, she is sharp, optimistic and will do much good for America. Which view is true will be determined later in time.
Photos by: (corresponding to slide number)
1:
Bottom left corner: Photo: Matt Cashore/University of Notre Dame Law School/ShutterstockMATT CASHORE/UNIVERSITY OF NOTR Right photo: Cropped, from Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images
2: the photo on the left: Amy Coney Barrett and her husband, by Julian Velasco
The photo on the right: https://www.whitehouse.gov
3: Vox News
4: Top left corner, Politico News
Bottom left corner: https://sportsgrindentertainment.com/will-democrats-attack-amy-coney-barrett/
Big photo towards the right: Judge Amy Coney Barrett is nominated to the Supreme Court by President Trump in the Rose Garden on September 26, 2020. (Olivier Douliery / AFP via Getty Images)
Barrett’s backstory
Amy Coney Barrett, also once known as Amy Vivan Coney, is a part of the Supreme Court. She was nominated by Donald J. Trump, and she replaced Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, since Ginsberg passed away on September 18, 2020.
Barrett was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. She grauated from St. Mary’s Dominican High School in 1990, then went to Rhodes College and graduated from Notre Dame Law School in 1997. Many of her professors in Notre Dame said that she was a good student. One of her professors, Prof. Dan Kelly, said that he remembered Barrett showing lots of understanding whenever he presented a paper to her, even though she studies completely different sections of law.
Barrett is married to Jesse M. Barrett and has 7 children. Their names are Emma, who is 19; Vivian, who is 16; Tess, who is also 16; John Peter, who is 13; Liam, who is 11; Juliet, who is 9; and Benjamin who is the youngest, at 8. The two of her adopted children (Vivian and John Peter) are from Haiti.
Amy Coney Barrett was once a professor at Notre Dame and she taught civil procedure (part of the law that creates rules that courts follow), constitutional law (part of the law that defines roles, powers, etc. of mainly, the executive, legislature and judiciary), and statutory interpretation (where courts interpret and apply legislation). She is most known for being considered by some to have been the best clerk in the Supreme Court, becoming the Professor of the Year at Notre Dame, always having Catholic faith, and replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
​
There is also the fact that when she was born, there was a Republican president, and that there were mostly Republicans in Louisiana. That naturally shaped her and made her one as well.
What she stands for
​
Some of the things that Coney Barrett stands for are anti-abortion, gun rights, and possibly getting rid of ObamaCare. She wants to ban abortions of fetuses with disabilities as well. Her youngest child, Benjamin, was raised with Down syndrome, which may be why she wants to ban abortions of fetuses with disabilities. She is also against some things like LGBTQ rights and gay marriages. Those are many of the things that she believes in while following the Catholic faith. Barrett supports executions and is in favor of people with a criminal history still being able to own guns (she is quite focused on the Second Amendment), and thinks that having children is the greatest impact someone can have on the world. She voted in favour of having asylum seekers returned to their home country and usually votes in favour of companies instead of workers.
Barrett doesn’t support racism. She doesn’t like it when black people are paid less because of their colour, and she also dislikes when people use racial slurs.
​
​