WHERE THE DOGMA LIVES LOUDLY.

I promised to limit my observations on the succession in the Supreme Court, and thus if you want to read about religious tests by the back door, read Charles J. Chaput, archbishop emeritus of Philadelphia.

Today’s hostility toward those who support Catholic teaching should concern every practicing Catholic—and anyone who values the First Amendment. If attacks on belief are an acceptable standard by which to impugn judicial nominees today, then tomorrow they’ll be used on the rest of us who uphold the teachings of our faith. What’s been playing out in Senate confirmation hearings and public debates over judicial nominees is a harbinger of future attacks on the Church herself and on any Catholic who holds with her enduring moral witness. Over the past decade, we’ve already seen the Catholic Church— and many of her ministries and institutions—targeted specifically for matters of belief.

Those who value our First Amendment right to religious freedom should realize that tests about belief are attacks on religious liberty. And positioning dissenting Catholics as “mainstream Americans” and believing Catholics as “extremists”—now a common and thoroughly dishonest culture war technique—is a particular affront to the free exercise of religion. It puts the rights of far more Americans at risk than will ever be nominated for the court.

What is fair game, however, is the reaction of higher education types.  Here's a Kery Murakami (no institutional affiliation given) in one of the house organs for the continued beclownment of higher education.

At a time when the nation is confronting racial inequity, Barrett’s appointment could mean a shift to a more conservative court, which could narrow or end the consideration of race in admitting particularly Black and Latinx students to college.

Barrett’s appointment could lead to greater legal rights for those accused of sexual misconduct on campuses, and far more difficulty for college administrators to take action. Colleges could also become less financially liable for incidents of sexual assault or harassment.

Congress’s confirmation of Barrett to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which appears likely, could also make it more difficult to impose requirements on student religious groups on campuses for discriminating against other students because of their beliefs.

Though her views on free speech and academic freedom are less known, some fear her appointment could also be a boost to groups who have gone to court accusing universities of stifling conservative viewpoints.

Those are all self-inflicted problems FOR higher education. None of them really ought be made a federal case, apart from higher education trashing the Fourteenth Amendment and calling it "access:" thus the lawsuits brought by students of Indian or Chinese or Jewish extraction against the Ivies; trashing the First and Fifth Amendments with those Holy Inquisition proceedings where the male is presumed guilty and given no opportunity to confront his accuser; or deanlets and deanlings committing similar abuses against the Constitution because, oh, a Christian organization names a believer as president (will somebody tell me where a practicing Jew has become head of the Islamic Student Organization?)

The real howler, though, is that "some fear ..." passage.  Are conservative organizations taking university administrators to court?  If so why?  Do the brain-sisters of Keri Murikami have so little confidence in their own arguments that they have to suppress others?

The balance of the column suggests the fears of the woke-scolds might be overblown.  I'll give Reason's Jacob Sullum the closing argument. "[I]f upholding the due process rights of someone facing sexual assault charges does not count as a 'liberal result,' the term has lost all meaning."  That's part of an extended commentary on the judge's work in a case involving Purdue's harassment proceedings.  But in the weird world of woke higher education, rights that protect people who might have some sort of privilege otherwise are not really rights.