 "Photo: Steve Pettaway/MCT")
 "Photo: Clem Murray/MCT")
In a decision that has become controversial, the Fordham Law School awarded Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer the Fordham-Stein Ethics Award on Oct. 29. Many Catholic groups around the world have voiced their disapproval of Breyer’s pro-choice stance on abortion.
“The award was a slap in the face to Cardinal Egan and to the U.S. Bishops,” said Patrick J. Reilly, Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH) ’91, president and founder of the Cardinal Newman Society (CNS), an organization “dedicated to renewing and strengthening Catholic identity at America's 224 Catholic colleges and universities,” according to its Web site. The Society is one of the groups leading the dissent against Fordham. Reilly said that, in 2004, Egan and the U.S. Bishops asked that all Catholic institutions refrain from presenting awards to those who support abortion rights.
Cardinal Edward M. Egan, the leader of the Catholic Church in New York, has rebuked Fordham administrators for doing just that. A spokesperson for the New York Archdiocese, Joseph Zwilling, issued a statement that he has spoken to Fordham officials to ensure that “a mistake of this sort will not happen again.”
Cardinal Egan has criticized Catholic elected officials previously for their support of abortion rights, but Zwilling said that his reproach of Breyer is the first instance of Egan speaking out against the presentation of an award to someone because of his or her stance on abortion.
William Michael Treanor, dean of Fordham Law School, characterized Breyer as a “brilliant, influential and path-breaking scholar” and a “superb honoree,” according to the Fordham Law School Newsroom. Bob Howe, director of communications for Fordham, said the university has no further comment on the decision. Other administrators and professors contacted for this article also declined to comment.
Breyer wrote the majority opinion in the 2000 Supreme Court decision that overturned Stenberg v. Carhart, the ban on so-called “partial-birth abortions” in Nebraska, citing that the law made no exceptions for situations where the mother’s health was at risk, making it unconstitutional. Incidentally, according to the New York Times, he is not the first supporter of abortion rights to receive the prize from Fordham Law School, but the first to draw such opposition from Catholic activists. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor received the award in 2001 and 1992, respectively. Both supported the decision to overturn Stenberg v. Carhart.
Reilly and his organization helped to get over 1,100 signatures from students and alumni, among others, who have demanded the award be rescinded, according to the New York Times. The Catholic News Agency reported that Reilly was in touch with Rev. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, weeks ago in an attempt to convince Fordham to rescind the award, but received no response. Asked to confirm that McShane had not attended the award ceremony for Breyer, Howe refused.
“Fordham was a disgrace as a Catholic institution when I attended there 20 years ago, and it continues to be so,” said Reilly in regard to the school’s decision to present Breyer with the award. “I think most faithful Catholics realize that Fordham is largely a secular institution and that the Jesuits as a whole long ago abandoned serious Catholic education.”
“It’s not surprising that [Reilly] has had this reaction to this award,” said Corinne Iozzio, FCLC ’05, a former Fordham Observer editor-in-chief, whose reporting on Reilly and CNS won the Chronicle of Higher Education’s David W. Miller Award for Student Journalists in 2005. “He has a serious history of doing incredibly inflammatory things. It’s finger-pointing.” Her three-article series discussed CNS’s petitioning of “The Vagina Monologues” being performed at various Catholic colleges around the country in 2005, the same year Fordham’s Student Activities Budget Committee (SABC) pulled funding for the performances.
Katie Costello, FCLC ’10, a current applicant to Fordham law, called the choice to award Breyer with the prize “a strange decision because of the Jesuit foundation Fordham is built on,” but pointed out that “the abortion cases this judge has handled are only a part of the total work he has done throughout his career,” she said.
The Respect for Life Club at the Rose Hill campus was one group that led opposition from within Fordham. Keyne Rice, FCRH ’12, a club member, said that “the club is deeply disappointed in Fordham’s disregard for the school’s Catholic ties and lack of Catholic morality.” The club’s president, Sheldon Momaney, addressed a letter to McShane expressing the group’s feelings. Rice echoed the sentiments issued by Zwilling, saying “we’re just really hoping that this sort of mistake never comes from Fordham University, or any other Catholic university, ever again.”
Dave de la Fuente, FCLC ’10, who stated that he is opposed to abortion, said that he was “pleased with the activism of the students in the Respect for Life Club...Whenever anything controversial comes up, students ought to exercise their rights as citizens to voice their opinion on the issue... I think it’s fair for students to be concerned about the overall image of our Jesuit Catholic University.” He continued, “All one can do is read [Breyer’s] opinion and decide whether he fulfilled his duties as a justice.”
Reilly told the Catholic News Agency that the decision was “nothing less than Fordham… thumbing its nose at the U.S. Bishops.” Reilly also said, “The choice by Fordham University of Justice Breyer to receive this prestigious award is a far cry from an award established to recognize the ‘positive contributions of the legal profession to American society.’ Justice Breyer did not act objectively in [the] Stenberg [case], but rather overstepped his authority and legislated from the bench.”
Paul Levinson, Fordham professor of communication and media studies, said, “I think it’s a great idea that [Justice Breyer received the award]...I think Justice Breyer has been one of the great voices of sanity and decency and respect for freedom on the Supreme Court.”
He continued, “I’m sick and tired of the pressure that these Catholic groups are trying to exert on a great university like Fordham...I think these groups are trying to intimidate Fordham and I give Father McShane a lot of credit for standing up to them.”
Pouya Gharavi, who is in his second year at Fordham’s School of Law, said, “[Fordham Law School] is Catholic in name only, not in practice. The [Jesuit foundation] doesn’t affect the procedural or substantive parts of our education.”
The prestigious annual prize is awarded to one individual who, according to its charter, “exemplifies outstanding standards of professional conduct, promotes the advancement of justice and brings credit to the profession by emphasizing in the public mind the contributions of lawyers to our society and to our democratic system of government.” Breyer is the seventh United States Supreme Court Justice to receive this honor since its inception in 1976.
