WASHINGTON – Human Rights First, a human rights group headed by a campaign donor to and former business partner of President Bush, has decided to oppose the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales to the post of attorney general.

The president of the group is Tom Bernstein, co-founder and president of the sports and entertainment facility Chelsea Piers, and he was one of the principal owners of the Texas Rangers baseball club in the ownership group led by Mr. Bush.

Mr. Bernstein’s business partner is Roland Betts, a close friend and confidant of Mr. Bush’s since their college days at Yale, who regularly meets with the president at Camp David.

Messrs. Betts and Bernstein have made large financial contributions to the re-election campaign of Mr. Bush and to the Republican National Committee. Mr. Bernstein has also donated to Democrats, including Senator Schumer, Senator Obama of Illinois, and the Senate Democratic leader, Senator Reid.

Human Rights First has vehemently criticized the administration’s detention policies in the war on terror. In a statement, the group said it was “compelled” to oppose the confirmation of the president’s legal counsel because he “has helped to steer America away from its commitment to human rights under law.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on Mr. Gonzales’s confirmation today.

The group is urging its supporters to send letters to their senators stating that “Mr. Gonzales helped to open the door to abuses that have undermined discipline in the military, put American fighting men and women at greater risk, and denied the United States the moral high ground.”

In a statement, the group said it was only the second time in 27 years that it was expressing opposition to an executive nomination. (The first time was in 1981,when the group opposed the nomination of a Reagan administration official who pledged to repeal human rights laws.)

The group said in a statement that it came to its “difficult decision with great reluctance.”

Mr. Bernstein, through his secretary, declined to comment on the matter. Mr. Betts did not respond to several requests for comment.

The communications director for Human Rights First, Jill Savitt, said she did not know whether all board members had approved the decision to oppose Mr. Gonzales, and that it is board policy to keep deliberations private. “No one is saying who stood where, if there was a head count. I’m sure there was a spirited discussion,” she said.

Mr. Betts told the New York Times this month that he shares his more liberal views with the president. Their private discussions over weekends in Camp David have included policy topics such as affirmative action and the war in Iraq. “Maybe I give him a little balance,” he was quoted as saying.

Human Rights First’s decision to oppose the Gonzales nomination was consistent with the group’s work to end secret detentions and prisoner abuse, Ms. Savitt said.

The board includes several notable critics of the detention policies, including the dean of the Yale Law School, Harold Koh, who was assistant secretary for human rights in the Clinton administration. Mr. Koh testified about torture law at Mr. Gonzales’s confirmation hearing this month. The board also includes the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Steven Shapiro, whose group does not take positions for or against executive nominees.

Other members include actress Sigourney Weaver, as well as lawyers, law professors, and business leaders.

In a statement explaining the vote, the group said Mr. Gonzales has expressed views that “are anathema to the rule of law, and contrary to the rights the United States has pledged to protect.”

The group said Mr. Gonzales had commissioned and disseminated an Office of Legal Counsel memo that relaxed the federal prohibition against torture, that he had advised the president that the “war on terror” rendered provisions of the Geneva Conventions obsolete, and that he had expressed an expansive view of executive branch powers.

At his Senate confirmation hearing, Mr. Gonzales played down his role in developing the administration’s detention policies and condemned torture.

Human Rights First said that while Mr. Gonzales made some “important” statements at the hearing, some of his answers to questions by senators were “incomplete, inaccurate, or evasive.”