NPR’s Nina Totenberg reports today that Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, warned University of Colorado Law School students that employers should be wary of female job applicants and should question women on their plans to start a family because, he said, they may just want a job only in order to secure maternity benefits and leave quickly to raise children.

As Totenberg notes, “Federal law prohibits employers from making hiring decisions based on pregnancy status or family plans.”

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jennifer Sisk, a former student, says that as an instructor, Gorsuch suggested that “‘many’ women use their companies for maternity benefits and then leave the company after the baby is born.”

“Judge Gorsuch’s comments implied that women intentionally manipulate companies and plan to disadvantage their companies starting from the first interview,” according to Sisk’s letter, which says Gorsuch argued that “law firms, and companies in general, had to ask female interviewees about pregnancy plans in order to protect the company.”

Throughout this class Judge Gorsuch continued to make it very clear that the question of commitment to work over family was one that only women had to answer for. There was no discussion of the reasons women may leave employment when having children or the difficulties in raising young children and meeting the high billable hours required in law firms. Instead, Judge Gorsuch continued to steer the conversation back to the problems women pose for companies and the protections that companies need from women.

Another student confirmed that Gorsuch had told students that “many female lawyers became pregnant, and questioned whether they should do so on their law firms’ dime.”

The National Women’s Law Center writes that if these statements are accurate, he engaged in the “stereotype that female employees must be regarded with suspicion because they are ‘mothers first, and workers second’ and the related stereotype that family caregiving obligations are solely the responsibility of women.”

If elevated to the Supreme Court, says the NWLC, “critical precedents and legal interpretations protecting women from sex discrimination at work would be at risk.”