He is standing up for Tom to prove to Maycomb and his children that just because Tom is black, it gives the white people no reason to disrespect the black people. Defending Tom is helping him hold his moral values. He is defending tom because he values equality and justice. In reference to the article “The Case Against To Kill a Mockingbird”, Saney mentions Atticus as a role model for Maycomb and his children. He tries so many times to show that everyone is equal, no matter what his or her skin color is. He is trying to make the town of Maycomb more accepted of the idea of equality since Maycomb is a town of great discrimination. “Atticus constructs a world of privately nurtured and publicly displayed moral exemplarity and teaches it to his children through the discourse of empathy.” He is like a teacher because he learns, and then teaches the feeling of what it is like for the oppressed other to suffer in the world instead of changing the world. The same reason that Atticus defends Tom is what defines him as a lawyer and a