Religious liberty and free speech are among Americans’ personal freedoms potentially imperiled by government overreach during the coronavirus pandemic, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has warned.

“Tolerance for opposing views is now in short supply,” Alito added in a virtual keynote speech to a conference of the Federalist Society, in which he referenced the current state of discourse in the nation’s law schools and the “broader academic community.”

Many recent law school graduates claim they face “harassment” and “retaliation” for any views that depart “from law school orthodoxy,” Alito said.

“In certain quarters religious liberty has fast become a disfavored right,” he said. “For many today, religious liberty is not a cherished freedom. It’s often just an excuse for bigotry and it can’t be tolerated even when there’s no evidence that anybody has been harmed.”

He said there was “hostility” toward “unfashionable views” before the pandemic but said that free speech on campuses and at some corporations is now in danger.

“You can’t say that marriage is a union between one man and one woman,” Alito said. “Until very recently that’s what the vast majority of Americans thought. Now it’s considered bigotry.”