CNN has discovered some truly stunning news: not everybody who went to school with Justice Samuel Alito agrees with him. On Thursday’s New Day, host John Berman opened up the floor to Professor Emeritus Susan Squier to call Alito a misogynist and compare him to those who conducted the Salem Witch Trials.
Berman began by noting the existence of a letter that came, not from Alito’s law school classmates, but undergraduate class, “women from Princeton University's class of 1972 have penned an open letter to fellow alum Justice Samuel Alito expressing their displeasure and protest over the draft opinion that seeks to overturn Roe v. Wade. In the letter published in the university student newspaper they write, quote, ‘we ask our classmates and the community of Princeton to protest the logic that ties us to a constitutional originalism which resists any movement toward justice, but rather moves us backwards.’”
Proving that satire is officially dead, he then introduced Squier as a “a professor emeritus of English and women’s gender, sexuality studies at Penn State University” and asked “Why do you think it was important to put this letter together?”
After Squier spoke to the obligation she felt to speak out against the draft opinion, Berman declared, “Professor, it strikes me you were a graduate in 1972, Roe was 1973, so you're very much part of a generation of women whose lives were changed by Roe.”
Squier naturally agreed and wondered, “why are we still fighting? Why are we still dealing with this?”
She also accused Alito of misogyny for referring to fetuses as unborn children, “I'm trained as a scholar of literature and medicine, and I look at nuance, and when I saw that he had smuggled into the document the wording from the Mississippi Gestational Age Act, which as I understand it, now I'm not a lawyer, isn't even law yet. And he's referring to unborn children rather than fetuses. I was just stunned. I mean, I have read a lot of medical history going back for doing literature and medicine, and his is like a greatest hits of misogyny.”
Battles over properly terminology aside, a fetus still very much has life, but Squier continued, “And this man was a historian at Princeton. He was a double major in history and PoliSci. But it’s as if he doesn't believe history actually involves a record of things changing. Instead it is history as let's go back to the Salem Witch Trials. It makes me so angry.
Berman then asked Squier to “reflect on a moment about the direction you think this country is headed in, in 2022, versus 50 years ago, 1972.”
Squier, declared “What I would say is we seem to be heading into a religious state, it is going to be a state run by Evangelical Christians …we seem to be going into a very dark period that doesn't feel hopeful.”
One should not expect better arguments from a professor sexuality studies, but they should be able to expect better of CNN.
This segment was sponsored by Subway.
Here is a transcript for the May 12 show:
CNN New Day with John Berman and Brianna Keilar
5/12/2022
8:29 AM ET
JOHN BERMAN: And this morning, women from Princeton University's class of 1972 have penned an open letter to fellow alum Justice Samuel Alito expressing their displeasure and protest over the draft opinion that seeks to overturn Roe v. Wade. In the letter published in the university student newspaper they write, quote, “we ask our classmates and the community of Princeton to protest the logic that ties us to a constitutional originalism which resists any movement toward justice, but rather moves us backwards.”
I’m joined now by Susan Squier, who knew Justice Alito from their time at Princeton and organized the letter, she’s now a professor emeritus of English and women’s, gender, sexuality studies at Penn State University. Professor, thanks so much for being with us. Why do you think it was important to put this letter together?
SUSAN SQUIER: Well, you know, it was a very fast decision based on waking up in the morning and reading the document. I had been planning to go back to Princeton, but when I saw the SCOTUS leak, and I started reading the document, I felt it couldn't be just business as usual. We had to respond in some way.
So I wrote a number of the women I was going to see at Princeton and said, can we do something, can we get together? So, I drafted the letter on Google Docs and we circulated it to as many women in the class as we could and it’s not that we're doing this because we hope it will change things. I don't know. Wouldn't that be lovely? I don't know, maybe I'm not -- I'm not that naive, but there is a time when you just have to speak out. And those of us who went to Princeton have a privilege of having gone there, we can get listened to. So, we have to speak for the women who cannot get listened to, the women who are going to be massively impacted, I hate that word, by this horrible new decision. So that was what we were thinking about.
BERMAN: Professor, it strikes me you were a graduate in 1972, Roe was 1973, so you're very much part of a generation of women whose lives were changed by Roe.
SQUIER: Absolutely right. Yes. I mean, in fact, when I wrote to my colleague, my friend at Princeton, I said it feels like this is the '70s all over again, here we are, just one year from 50 years since Roe was passed. And why are we still fighting? Why are we still dealing with this?
So we really have benefited by the opportunities that Roe gave us. We could go to college, we could go to graduate school, our lives weren't going to be massively impacted by it. It felt like we should do something and then when I read the document, I read all 98 pages of it, and mind you I'm trained as a scholar of literature and medicine, and I look at nuance, and when I saw that he had smuggled into the document the wording from the Mississippi Gestational Age Act, which as I understand it, now I'm not a lawyer, isn't even law yet. And he's referring to unborn children rather than fetuses. I was just stunned. I mean, I have read a lot of medical history going back for doing literature and medicine, and his is like a greatest hits of misogyny. He doesn't consider the context. And this man was a historian at Princeton. He was a double major in history and PoliSci. But it’s as if he doesn't believe history actually involves a record of things changing. Instead it is history as let's go back to the Salem Witch Trials. It makes me so angry.
BERMAN: If you can, reflect on a moment about the direction you think this country is headed in, in 2022, versus 50 years ago, 1972.
SQUIER: What I would say is we seem to be heading into a religious state, it is going to be a state run by Evangelical Christians and instead of what we were doing in 1972, which is widening access to the good things this country has, for people of all races, for people who are gay, for people who are disabled, we seem to be rolling that right back and we're going to really restrict all those liberties that some of whom were guaranteed us in the Constitution, some of them, like the ERA have yet to get into the Constitution. But it was a really hopeful moment and now we seem to be going into a very dark period that doesn't feel hopeful.
BERMAN: Professor –
SQUIER: The one hope, however, is that we were all -- the class -- my female classmates could come together on this and quite quickly we decided we needed to do something and basically our feminism drew us together and our sense of obligation for the people who cannot speak, who do not get listened to and who are going to have feeling the brunt of this.
BERMAN: Professor Susan Squier, I do appreciate this discussion and you will forgive my smile, you are a professor of English, I’m just a lowly TV writer, but I share your hatred of the word impacted right there.
SQUIER: Oh god, thank you.
BERMANL So, I appreciate—I appreciate-- the acknowledgement there, joining me in this war. Appreciate it.
SQUIER: Yeah. Good.
