Justice Alito: Freedom of Speech 'Declining Dangerously'

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito warned of the dangers of worldwide protests in the name of freedom are actually doing more damage to the cause.

"Right now in the world outside this beautiful campus, troubled waters are slamming against some of our most fundamental principles," Alito said in his commencement speech to Franciscan University of Steubenville, a Catholic Ohio college, Saturday.

"Support for freedom of speech is declining dangerously."

Alito, one of five staunchly conservative justices on the Supreme Court along with Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanuagh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch, warned campus protests are showing speech is not being protected but "imperiled," and colleges should lead the way for the America's next generation on constitutional freedoms.

"Very few colleges live up to that ideal — this place is one of them," he told the graduates, "but things are not that way out there in the broader world."

Alito urged the graduates to "stand firm" against those using the guise of protest, if not violence and rioting, to force their will upon others, whether it be for speech or religion.

"Freedom of religion is also imperiled," Alito continued. "When you venture out into the world, you may well find yourself in a job, or community, or a social setting when you will be pressured to endorse ideas you don't believe, or to abandon core beliefs.

"It will be up to you to stand firm."

Alito and Thomas were just two conservative justices on the Supreme Court before former President Donald Trump unprecedentedly brought three more constitutional textualists to the court. Chief Justice John Roberts was also nominated by a Republican president, but experts note his votes, writings, and rulings have presented a more moderate perspective. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagen, and President Joe Biden's nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson are liberal voices on the bench.