ROBERTS: Well, it's a once in a lifetime experience, Senator.
LEAHY: When we left off the other day, you and I were discussing the Supreme Court's decision and Christine Franklin -- the Title IX case. This, for those who may have forgotten, was the case of very, very serious sexual abuse of a young girl by her teacher. It makes your skin crawl just to hear the facts of it.
Now, Justice White's opinion for the Supreme Court rejected your technical legal arguments. You had argued she should not be allowed to sue for damages.
He wrote, quote, "From the earliest years of the republic, the court has recognized the power of the judiciary to award appropriate remedies to redress injuries actionable in federal court." He went on to note that, "To disallow damages, remedy in this case would be to abdicate our historic judicial authority, to award appropriate relief in cases brought in our court system."
And then most tellingly, Justice White wrote that your argument that Christine Franklin's remedy should be limited to backpay and injunction, a position you had reiterated a couple days ago -- he said that that conflicts with sound logic. He went on to say that it's clearly inadequate. And he wrote that backpay does nothing for in prospective relief in the court where there's no remedies at all.
Now, the reason I raise this case, not that it's one of those rare ones where you are on the losing side, but I raised it because I thought it was a case about what our courts should do, including doing justice and remedying rights and protecting Americans.
LEAHY: So my question to you is this: Do you now recognize that the Supreme Court's view in the case set forth in Justice White's opinion was the right one, and the positions of the United States in your brief were the wrong ones?
ROBERTS: Well, as a judge, looking at it, obviously when you lose a case, as you point out, 9-0 it's a pretty clear signal that the legal position you're advocating was the wrong one.
The position the administration took in that case was the same position that the Court of Appeals had taken. In other words, what the Supreme Court did was reverse the lower court.
So I'm just explaining why the position we took prior to the decision may have looked different than it did after the...
LEAHY: I understand that. I thought I, sort of, laid that out earlier.
But my question is: Do you now accept that Justice White's position was right and the government's position was wrong?
