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Show ah Statesman Opinion. • ROBERTS From page 72 ^SPEAKS From page 12 amendment. Asked this week if he thought the huge political gains blacks have made because of the Voting Rights Act would have occurred if his view had prevailed, and if he still holds that view, Roberts waffled. He agreed that the law has helped blacks, but he said some of the gains might have occurred anyway. Besides, he was only 26 years old at the time, and his job was to promote the views of the president. Asked if Sept. 11, 2001, changed his view of individual liberties, Roberts said the Bill of Rights "doesn't change in time of war." But asked to explain why he decided, along with his Court of Appeals colleagues, to deny an American citizen who was being held indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay the right to challenge his detention in court, Roberts refused to discuss the case - because it's still pending, he said. And when asked if he believes there's a constitutional right to privacy, he said yes, ticking off a fist of private activities that are protected by the Constitution. Roe v. Wade was also based on the privacy argument. But while Roberts has been saying lately he feels that Roe is settled law, in the past he's attacked it as being based on nothing in the Constitution. A nice guy with a healthy respect for the Constitution, Roberts still doesn't get it that a racially "neutral" law can keep black voters disenfranchised for 70 years if Congress doesn't step in, that it's profoundly un-American to keep someone in prison for years without bringing him to trial, and that a woman's desire to terminate an unwanted pregnancy should trump the state's desire to impose its morality on her. A conservative like Roberts is all we're going to get from President Bush, and he's sure to be confirmed. But we can hope these hearings will jar his sensibilities a little, help him understand how his decisions affect real people, and encourage him to display more modesty, humility and humanity in the future than he has in the past. We'll all be watching. Sheryl McCarthy is a columnist for Newsday. succeed, arguing many cases before the high court and two years "as a federal appeals court judge - were certainly on display. He came across as knowledgeable, thoughtful and respectful, but no pushover. As he prepares to sit atop the federal judiciary, he insisted that he had no agenda and promised to keep an open mind. But from the outset, in response to questions by Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Arlen Specter, Judge Roberts clearly wanted to make a point by expressing the view that Roe v. Wade, a lightning rod for conservatives and liberals, was "settled as a precedent of the court." That's no guarantee of how he will vote on abortion cases - or any other issues on which the court has ruled - b u t it was a signal. In fact, his mantra of a limited role for courts and judges in making policy and of being guided by trie law, not his personal beliefs, seemed to seal his place among more traditional conservatives. And while there were no revelations that would likely derail his confirmation, there were a few tense exchanges leading to his apparent retreat from some seemingly hostile views about civil rights and voting rights expressed in memos he wrote as a junior lawyer during the Reagan administration. He was occasionally feisty as he defended his right not to answer questions about specific cases or even issues, saying he was not engaged in a bargaining process with the senators. And he gave some hint of the kind of chief justice he would be when he suggested that he would work to bring more clarity to majority opinions. But as history proves, and many presidents have been pleased or chagrined to discover, the evolution of a chief justice or an associate justice, is unpredictable. We would certainly prefer a nominee in whom we had more confidence on issues such as civil and criminal rights and environmental protections, but we will keep an open mind. This editorial appeared in Thursday's Baltimore Sun. • MERRILL From page 12 presidents would live there. And of course, at what other university will you see 10,000 fans in unison milking cows as they sing their school fight song to cheer on their team? I love this school. And for more than 70 years, the Merrill Library has been an integral part of that tradition. Next semester, we will lose a part of that heritage since it will be demolished. And I am going to lose my friend. Jon Cox is a senior majoring in print journalism. Comments can be sent to jcox@cc. usu. edu. 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