It was a time of turmoil at colleges and universities. And I saw some very smart people and very privileged people behaving irresponsibly. And I couldn't help making a contrast between some of the worst of what I saw on the campus and the good sense and the decency of the people back in my own community.

Good judges develop certain habits of mind. One of those habits of mind is the habit of delaying reaching conclusions until everything has been considered.

Under the president's spying program, there are no checks and balances. There is no outside review of the legality of this brazen infringement on the civil rights and liberties of the American people. Undeterred by the public outcry, the president [George Bush] vows to continue spying on American citizens.

Private religious speech can't be discriminated against. It has to be treated equally with secular speech.

In an era where the White House is abusing power, is excusing and authorizing torture and is spying on American citizens, I find Judge [Samuel] Alito's support for an all-powerful executive branch to be genuinely troubling.

You want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution which is newer than cellphones or the Internet?

A generation earlier, I think that somebody from my background probably would not have felt fully comfortable at a college like Princeton. But, by the time I graduated from high school, things had changed.