Alito's role in group prompts face-off on panel Kennedy and Specter spar over participation in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton.

0 Comments | Philadelphia Inquirer, The, January, 2006 | by Chris Mondics

It seemed for a moment yesterday that the careful choreography of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s Senate confirmation hearings was unraveling.

It happened when Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D., Mass.) clashed over Alito's membership in a conservative Princeton University alumni group founded by some who had opposed admission of women and minorities.

The confrontation came midway through what until then had been an uneventful morning.

Voices rose, faces flushed, and at one point Specter banged his gavel to regain control.

The exchange came at the end of a series of questions posed by Kennedy to Alito about his membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton. Alito said he had no recollection of...