Neil Gorsuch Questioned About Maternity Leave Comments in Confirmation Hearings
During the Mar. 21 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justice nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked the judge about recent allegations that he made controversial comments suggesting that women were trying to manipulate employers to receive maternity leave benefits.
Over the weekend, news broke of a letter sent by a former law student of Gorsuch to the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, alleging that while she was taking Gorsuch’s legal ethics course last year, Gorsuch told the class that women often seek to manipulate employers by accepting positions at firms for maternity benefits so they may start to pay off their student loans — and then leave the company as soon as they have used those benefits. Because of that, he allegedly said, organizations should be skeptical of young, female candidates.
Others in the class have since come forward saying they remember the class discussion differently.
On Tuesday, Durbin addressed the situation, asking Gorsuch, “Would you agree that if an employer were to ask female job applicants about their family planning plans, but not male applicants, that would be evidence of sex discrimination prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act?”
“Sir, I’d agree with you that it would be highly inappropriate,” Gorsuch replied.
Durbin then asked, “You don’t believe it is prohibited?”
Gorsuch responded sharply, noting, “Senator, it sounds like a potential hypothetical case that might be a case or controversy I would have to decide, and I wouldn’t want to prejudge just sitting here at the confirmation table. I can tell you it would be inappropriate.”
Durbin continued, asking Gorsuch if he had indeed asked his students to do what had been alleged — raise their hands if they knew of a woman who had taken maternity benefits at a company and then left that company after having the baby.
“No, Senator,” Gorsuch replied, “and I’d be delighted to actually clear this up.” He added that the first he had heard of the allegation was the night before his confirmation hearings, and that he had been teaching legal ethics at the University of Colorado for seven or eight years with the aid of a standard textbook that other professors there use.
“There is one problem in the book,” Gorsuch said, “and I would be happy to share with you the book and the teacher’s manual so you can see for yourself, Senator, which asks the question directed to young women because, sadly, this is a reality that they sometimes face. Problem is this — suppose an older, partner woman at the firm that you’re interviewing at asks you if you intend to become pregnant soon. What are your choices as a young person? You can say yes. Tell the truth, in the hypothetical, that it’s true, and not get the job, and not be able to pay your debts. You can lie, maybe get the job, and say no. That’s a choice too. That’s a hard choice. Or you can push back in some way, shape, or form.”
Gorsuch explained that he always asks his students how many have been asked “the inappropriate question about your family planning” and that he is “shocked every year” at how many of the women raise their hand. “It’s disturbing to me,” he said. “I knew this stuff happened when my mom was a young practicing lawyer, graduating law school in the 1960s. At age 20, she had to wait for a year to take the bar [exam]. I knew it happened with Justice O’Connor, who couldn’t get a job as a lawyer when she graduated Stanford Law School and had to work as a secretary. I am shocked it still happens every year that I get women, not men, raising their hand to that question.”
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