Gorsuch: No, I Didn't Suggest Women 'Manipulate' Maternity Leave

[DonViejo]

Source: Talking Points Memo



By ESME CRIBB Published MARCH 21, 2017, 1:53 PM EDT

During his confirmation hearing Tuesday, Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch was asked to address an allegation in recent days that he suggested to a law school class that women manipulate maternity leave to take advantage of employers.

Gorsuch was pressed by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) on a letter by one of Gorsuch's former students to the Senate Judiciary Committee which emerged over the weekend.

"Did you ask your students in class that day to raise their hands if they knew of a woman who had taken maternity benefits from a company and then left the company after having a baby?" Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) asked Gorsuch during his confirmation hearing. "No, Senator, and I'd be delighted to actually clear this up," Gorsuch replied. "The first I heard of this was the night before my confirmation hearing."

Gorsuch said on Tuesday that an ethics hypothetical involving maternity leave was contained in a "standard textbook" he used while teaching legal ethics at the University of Colorado. He offered to share a copy of the text and the teacher's manual with Durbin.



Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/neil-gorsuch-maternity-leave-comments-were-standard-textbook-question

[calimary]

1. I'm watching him in the hearing this morning. NOT impressed. He's a testy little bugger.

Don't like his attitude. At all.

He clearly doesn't like being questioned, or challenged. Getting his umbrage up, very slightly, but it's definitely there. Not liking it. Or him.

[JudyM]

8. His authoritarianism is showing. The gall of anyone to imply he is less than supremely ideal.

[sharedvalues]

2. Call the student to the hearing!!!

This is hearsay. And probably a lie by Gorsuch. The student was quoted as saying something very different.

Get the student in who made the accusation and have her testify!!

[PoliticAverse]

3. Why depend on the student's memory when you can just see if the textbook contains the hypothetical.

[bettyellen]

5. Because according to he letter he went beyond the textbook - she also

Complained to the university and discussed his comments immediately after with other femal law students. That is more reliable than some stupid text book. He's claiming he only said what was in the text book? What bullshit.

[sharedvalues]

6. Because Gorsuch is trying to deflect the real issue

The real issue is that Gorsuch said:
"He asked the class to raise their hands if they knew of a female who had used a company to get maternity benefits and then left right after having a baby," Sisk wrote.

When only a fraction of the classroom acknowledged such a tactic, Gorsuch scoffed.

"C'mon guys," Gorsuch allegedly replied, adding that more students should have raised their hands.

----

Law professors often ask provocative questions in the course of teaching. When asked if that's what Gorsuch may have been doing, Sisk told NPR: "It wasn't what he was doing. This was second-to-last class, hadn't been the style he had been using to sort of raise issues all class, or all semester."

She added, "He kept bringing it back to that this was women taking advantage of their companies, that this was a woman's issue, a woman's problem with having children and disadvantaging their companies by doing that."

[Puppyjive]

9. I am one of the women he is talking about.

I resigned from my job, citing dangerous working conditions from lack of adequate rest between shifts. I stated that I felt like I was going to fall asleep at the controls of a train after being called back to work only after 5 1/2 hours of rest. My child depended on me to return home. He was around 1 year old. Shortly after I resigned, two fellow crew members fell asleep and derailed a train near the same spot where I witnessed two crewmembers sleeping. This is why health care needs to be universal and mothers should not be criticized for choosing to stay home with their children. It pains me to hear that people feel this way about maternity care. They are hypocrites. They say they care about life, yet they will force a women to work like a slave to pay for a birth of a child. We are slaves to employers and we are slaves to the health insurance companies.

[hamsterjill]

4. His disdain for women is quite apparent.

He can't hide it. Even with him trying to hide it, it comes through.

Worthless piece of shit.

[marybourg]

7. I heard the beginning of this dialog while visiting my spouse,

who watches CNN in his room (the rest of the patients watch Faux News in the living room). Gorsuch said that the hypothetical asked by a hiring official was:"do you intend to start a family?" or some such coy language. Then he gave his idea of the three possible responses, none of which was: "It's not legal for you to ask that question". Nor did I hear him say that in the minute or so before I muted the tv.

Am I imagining that it has been illegal to discriminate against pregnancy and pregnant women in this country for many years and that a superstar law professor and the Senate of the United States should know that? Was it mentioned later in the dialog?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

10. And so what if someone "manipulates" maternity leave.

Employers manipulate hours to avoid benefits, fire people before they accrue too much vacation, fire people in favor of younger cheaper employees, ship jobs to slave labor wage countries etc. etc etc.

Shut up and eat your gruel, I guess.

[Puppyjive]

11. Right on!

Right on! Employees are expendible and easliy replaced.

[Sunlei]

12. He refused to say who his shadow backers are. IMO, those are Republicans who moved

Gorsuch within Mr. Trumps, very short attention range. Republicans used the same list tactic on Trump like their "list of generals who luv trump & easy Russian money" they sent Trump in the Republican campaign.

The same Republicans who ignored President Obamas', Garland nomination for almost a year!