With Amy Coney Barrett, a once-fringe legal philosophy goes mainstream

Before she joined 100 fellow law students at the Blackstone Legal Fellowship, Leah Boyd, now a practicing attorney in Amarillo, Texas, felt discouraged and hopeless in her first year of law school.

These were the people who were going to be shaping the laws and the culture in the United States, she said in a 2015 video promoting the fellowship, “and they have absolutely no moral compass.”

“Just to know that I was not alone was encouraging, and helped me to not give up,” she added.

The Blackstone fellowship, organized for 20 years by the nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom, aims to train Christian lawyers to “foster legal systems that fully protect our God-given rights.” The program’s student and teacher alumni now include dozens of law clerks, a U.S. senator, and at least six federal judges – most notably Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who could soon become the youngest member of the U.S Supreme Court.

The reach of the ADF and other conservative Christian legal organizations is further still. If Judge Barrett is confirmed, it would represent a culmination of decadeslong efforts…

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