'I do not recall knowing any of these things about the organization'

Democratic senators grilled Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. on his membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton, which opposed affirmative action and admission of women. Alito listed the membership on a 1985 job application, but has said he has no memory of it.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy: The June '84 edition of Prospect magazine contains a short article on AIDS. . . . And the article then goes on with this terrible statement: ''Now that the scientists must find humans, or rather homosexuals, to submit themselves to experimental treatment, perhaps Princeton's Gay Alliance may want to hold an election." You didn't read that article?

Alito: I feel confident that I didn't, Senator, because I would not have anything to do with statements of that nature.

Kennedy: In 1980, the New York Times article about the coeducation of Princeton, CAP is described as an organization against the admittance of women. . . . Did you see this article?

Alito: I don't believe that I saw the article.

Kennedy: And did you read a letter from CAP mailed in 1984 -- this is the year before you put CAP on your application -- to every living alumni . . . which declared: ''Princeton is no longer the university you knew it to be." As evidence, among other reasons, it cited the fact that admission rates for African-Americans and Hispanics were on the rise, while those of alumni children were failing and Princeton's president at the time urged that the then all-male eating clubs to admit females. . .

Alito: Senator, I've testified to everything that I can recall relating to this, and I do not recall knowing any of these things about the organization. And many of the things that you've mentioned are things that I have always stood against . . . there's talk about returning the Princeton that used to be. There's talk about eating clubs, about all-male eating clubs. There's talk about the admission of alumni children. . . . None of that is something that I would identify with. I was not the son of an alumnus. I was not a member of an eating club. I was not a member of an eating facility that was selective. I was not a member of an all-male eating facility. And I would not have identified with any of that. If I had received any information at any point regarding any of the matters that you have referred to in relation to this organization, I would never have had anything to do with it.

Kennedy: You think these are conservative views?

Alito: Senator, whatever I knew about this organization in 1985, I identified as conservative. I don't identify those views as conservative. What I do recall as an issue that bothered me in relation to the Princeton administration as an undergraduate and continuing into the 1980s was their treatment of the ROTC unit and their general attitude toward the military, which they did not treat with the respect that I thought was deserving. The idea of that it was beneath Princeton to have an ROTC unit on campus was an offensive idea to me.