Justice Samuel Alito Tells Students to Defend Freedom of Speech and Religious Liberty

In a commencement speech to students at Franciscan University, a Catholic college based in Ohio, Justice Samuel Alito urged them to defend religious liberty and free speech.

“The framers foresaw that troublous times would arise when rulers and people would become restive and the principles of constitutional liberty would be in peril unless established by irreparable law,” Alito said.

“The Constitution of the United States applies to all classes of men at all times and under all circumstances,” he added. “This same fundamental idea that there are certain principles that we cannot compromise without paying a fearsome price applies to our personal lives.”

He continued: “There are certain moral principles that are true and immutable. These principles of right and wrong are not relative or circumstantial. They are not of our making, and it is not within our power to change them even though at times we might find that convenient.”

“Our Constitution has survived and flourished because it was designed to accommodate change. We are a nation of change. When Alexis de Tocqueville toured the United States in the 1840s he marveled at the restlessness of Americans. And since Tocqueville’s day, Americans have never stopped racing towards the future,” he said.

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“The first is respect for reason and civil discourse. Our legal system is built on the premise that it is possible for fair and open-minded people to solve their problems by reasoning together by a process of rational and respectful argumentation. I hope you will take that approach in your lives,” Alito continued.

In June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, with a 6-3 majority ruling in the Dobbs case that “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion.”

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority.

“The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion. “That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’ and ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.’”

“Abortion presents a profound moral question. The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives,” Alito wrote.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences,” Alito wrote. “And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”

Although technically voting with the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a concurrence saying he supports upholding the 15-week ban at issue in the case but not overturning Roe.

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