Black civil rights activists, educators and health care experts said this week that Judge John G. Roberts’ nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court could jeopardize longstanding federal protections for women and people of color.

More than 15,000 Justice Department documents released Wednesday show that Roberts played a significant role in the legal policy discussions of the early Reagan administration. The documents are from Roberts' 1981-1982 tenure as a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith.

"Throughout his career, Roberts has consistently supported and promoted a legislative agenda that placed the rights of women and minority groups in jeopardy," Dr. Lorraine Cole, president and CEO of the Black Women's Health Imperative, wrote in a recent essay.

"Decisions about women's lives should be made by women," Cole wrote, "and, decisions about women's health should be between a woman and her doctor, not the government. John G. Roberts Jr. is apparently out of the mainstream of America on these issues."

In 1991, Roberts, then deputy solicitor general in the George H.W. Bush administration, told the Supreme Court that its historic decision supporting a woman's right to an abortion was "wrongly decided and should be overruled." In 2003, when Roberts was up for a judgeship, he played down his earlier statement, explaining that he made the administration's case against Roe v. Wade only because that was his responsibility as its lawyer.

But Cole and liberal groups maintain that Roberts has taken positions in cases involving free speech and religious liberty that endanger those rights.

Abortion rights groups allege that Roberts, while deputy solicitor general during former President Bush's administration, is hostile to women's reproductive freedom and cite a brief he co-wrote in 1990 that suggested the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 high court decision that legalized abortion.

"If this is true and he is confirmed to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court," Cole added, "the privacy of every woman's sexual health and reproductive rights, as well as access to critical health services, would be threatened for decades to come."

Black activists say they are especially troubled by Roberts’ positions on state’s rights, individual rights, freedom of speech and religious freedoms.

On issues involving civil rights, according to the Justice Department records, Roberts once defended the constitutionality of proposed legislation to restrict the ability of federal courts to order busing to desegregate schools.

In December 1981, according to the New York Times, the United States Commission on Civil Rights issued a report defending affirmative action as a way to fight discrimination. Judge Roberts wrote a tough critique, saying the "obvious reason" affirmative action programs had failed was that they "required the recruiting of inadequately prepared candidates."

The records also reveal that Roberts once counseled Justice Department officials on how to tell Coretta Scott King that the Reagan administration was cutting off federal funding to the Dr. Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta.

Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP’s national board of directors, said the nation’s oldest civil rights organization is taking a cautionary position regarding Roberts’ nomination.

"Our inclination is to be concerned," Bond told BlackAmericaWeb.com Tuesday.

"When President Bush repeatedly says he wants justices in the mold of the two most reactionary members of the Court -- [Antonin] Scalia and [Clarence] Thomas -- you've got to be worried about any of his nominees," Bond said. "They are dedicated to overturning the gains of the civil rights movement, and anyone like them must be immediately suspect."

President George W. Bush appointed Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court last week. Civil rights activists say the Supreme Court has a history of deciding by narrow margins many important cases that deeply affect all minorities. Its decisions can determine U.S. policy on workers' rights, affirmative action, voting rights and education.

Given the close split on the court between moderates and conservatives, some say the next Supreme Court justice -- perhaps Roberts -- will alter the ideological direction of the country.

"Roberts represents one less woman on the court and one less advocate for women’s rights," Rev. Jesse Jackson told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "The court looks less like America, and that is unacceptable."

"Roberts has an iron fist," Jackson said in an interview. "He has been packaged as digestible, but civil rights advocates have no reason to rejoice."

Roberts, 50, has been on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since June 2003 after being picked for that seat by Bush. In the early 1980s, Roberts was also a clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist.

The millionaire judge graduated Harvard Law School and has worked for the Washington law firm of Hogan & Hartson, one of the nation’s most prestigious firms.

"Judge Roberts, the President's nominee, has little experience as a judge and a sparse public record," Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said in a statement. "We suspect that is one of the reasons President Bush chose him."

Watt added, "He has spent most of his career as a corporate lawyer arguing for business interests, and we must be convinced that he has the capacity to hear and decide fairly the interests of all Americans -- not just the special interests of a few."

Last October, while serving on the D.C. court, Roberts voted with two colleagues to uphold the arrest and detention of a black 12-year-old girl for eating french fries at a D.C. Metro station, though his opinion noted, "No one is very happy about the events that led to this litigation."

Roberts upheld the constitutionality of Ansche Hedgepeth’s arrest. The youngster from D.C. was handcuffed and arrested by D.C. Metro Transit Police, and the incident drew national attention. Roberts wrote that Hedgepeth was searched, booked, fingerprinted and detained in a juvenile center, "all for eating a single french fry in a Metrorail station."

Advocacy groups on the right say that Roberts, a native of Buffalo, N.Y., is a bright judge with strong conservative credentials he burnished in the administrations of former Presidents Bush and Reagan. While he has been a federal judge for a little more than two years, legal experts say that whatever experience he lacks on the bench is offset by his many years arguing cases before the Supreme Court.

Tara Wall, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, said Roberts’ record is exemplary.

"We are proud that President Bush considered a diverse group of candidates for the Supreme Court nomination and ultimately selected John Roberts, whose reputation as an unparalleled legal mind and a compassionate jurist will undoubtedly serve the nation's highest court with the utmost integrity and respect for American jurisprudence," Wall told BlackAmericaWeb.com Tuesday.

But Watt said Roberts will have to explain his record to the nation.

"The burden will be on Judge Roberts and the administration to provide full information about his record, including details of all his work in Republican administrations that have been extremely partisan and, in many cases racially divisive, over a number of years," Watt said.

"Coming from this background," he said, "the public should not be surprised to find that the Congressional Black Caucus will approach this nomination with substantial caution and even suspicion."

Meanwhile, Cole, in her essay, said she had hoped Bush would appoint a woman or minority to replace U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who announced her retirement last month.

"He could have sought to expand the diversity of the Supreme Court to be more reflective of the country," Cole wrote in her essay. "We are more diverse as a nation today than at any other point in history."

She added that Roberts’ judicial future now rests with the U.S. Senate.

"The Senate has an important duty in front of them," Cole said. "They need to ask the important questions of this nominee, and Roberts has an obligation to answer. The White House obviously knows his views. But the Supreme Court doesn't belong to this President. It belongs to the American people, and we deserve to know Roberts' answers."

For now, Bond said, the NAACP will remain impartial.

"In all fairness, the NAACP will watch the confirmation hearings and listen closely to the nominee's responses to questions," he said. "We'll also be monitoring the questioners -- which Senators ask what questions -- and will make a final decision as the hearings close."