Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday grilled U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit nominee and longtime labor lawyer Nicole Berner over a past comment she made calling the “right-to-work” movement racist.

Several GOP senators raised a speech Berner gave in which they said she called the movement “deeply racist.” Right to work laws, which exist in at least 27 states, give employees the right to refrain from being a member of a labor union.