Today in Supreme Court History: October 23, 1991

10/23/1991: Justice Clarence Thomas takes oath.

Justice Clarence Thomas

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

He already lied once under oath so doing it a second time must not have been that great a strain.

[Darth Chocolate]

What an angry, bitter person you are.

[DaivdBehar]

There is an affirmative patriotic duty to lie to the enemy in a war. The Democrat Party is at war with our nation on behalf of the tech billionaires. They are kowtowing to the Chinese Commie Party to enrich themselves by access to its market. The Democrat Party is an indirect servant of the CCP, in serving the interests of the tech billionaires.

[Sebastian Cremmington]

Remember when you supported George Xi Bush stealing the 2000 election and then cheered as he lied us into an asinine war all the while selling us out to China?? Good times.

[Queen Amalthea]

Behar's comments here sound like something a spokesperson for the John Birch society would say after a coke binge.

I particularly like the idea that conservatives are the thin line in a war protecting the country from the evil tech billionaires and the CCP. Don't fire your massive tax cuts and deregulation for the former until you see the whites of their eyes (or, you know, just go ahead and fire them at will)! Lol.

[Sidney r finkel]

A sad day indeed.

Clarence is the most political of Justices and the least intellectual of Justices. His entire success in life is solely because he is a conservative Republican who is also an African American and thus was the recipient of the attempts by conservatives to show that despite their hostility to civil rights they are not prejudiced against African Americans.

Were Clarence a caucasian he would likely have only risen to the post of an Assistant D. A. in some backwater county, that is, if he had been able to get a law degree. When partisan attitudes towards Clarence die down and an objective study is done of his life future generations will wonder how in the world this country tolerated such a mediocraty on the Supreme Court.

And deep down, Clarence knows all of this, which is why he is the angriest and most bitter of Justices. He know he does not merit what he has been given, but that he did not have the courage to reject his meritless appointments.

[DaivdBehar]

This are just personal insults of a conservative judge by a dirty Commie. They commit The Fallacy of Irrelevance, and are dismissed.

[Queen Amalthea]

Authoritarian nutjob is, unsurprisingly, not very self-aware.

[JonFrum]

"future generations will wonder how in the world this country tolerated such a mediocraty "

Mediocrity?

It must be hard on you - seeing such stupid people rise so high.

[Sidney r finkel]

Actually it is.

[Darth Chocolate]

More like jealousy, I reckon.

[Queen Amalthea]

I don't think it's fair to call Thomas a mediocrity, however the argument that someone must not be stupid because they 'rose high' is uncommonly silly. Lots of stupid people fail quite upwards for a variety of reasons, and this is particularly true when we're talking about fields where politics has a lot to do with success.

[Cal Cetín]

It's hard to keep up - I thought all the racists called him Batack Hussein Obama and his supporters familiarly called him Barack without the Hussein. I only recall seeing "barry" in a satirical cartoon by the progressive cartoonist Tom Tomorrow.

I've never adopted the pseudo-familiarity of calling Presidential candidates by their first names - bill, Barry, Hillary- you'd have to ask someone else about this practice.

[Cal Cetín]

"Clarence is the most political of Justices and the least intellectual of Justices."

Why use his first name, while using neither his last name nor (God forbid) his title?

There are two kinds of people who would insist on referring to a black person by his first name along. One kind is Quakers (who traditionally don't believe in titles or last names). So I assume you're a Quaker.

"Were Clarence a caucasian he would likely have only risen to the post of an Assistant D. A. in some backwater county, that is, if he had been able to get a law degree."

Isn't he a Yale graduate? Are you impugning the degree of every black person who graduated from Yale Law, just to make a partisan point, or are you in fact more hostile to Yale than all the right-wing commenters combined?

Your violated-vestal-virgin posturing is amusing in light of the marginally qualified *white* people who get appointed to powerful positions.

Or perhaps you simply want to find an excuse to refuse to engage with Justice Thomas' jurisprudence (assuming you're familiar with it and can understand it).

[Cal Cetín]

Oh, this is interesting. From Wikipedia:

"Thomas has said that the law firms he applied to after graduating from Yale did not take his Juris Doctor seriously, assuming he obtained it because of affirmative action; Dean Louis Pollak wrote in 1969 that Yale Law was then expanding its program of quotas for black applicants, with up to 24 entering that year under a system that deemphasized grades and LSAT scores. According to Thomas, the law firms also "asked pointed questions, unsubtly suggesting that they doubted I was as smart as my grades indicated." In his 2007 memoir, Thomas wrote, "I peeled a fifteen-cent sticker off a package of cigars and stuck it on the frame of my law degree to remind myself of the mistake I'd made by going to Yale. I never did change my mind about its value.""

So you're joining in the critique of affirmative action, I presume, and urging Yale to have non-racist standards for admission?

[Queen Amalthea]

I'm curious, you've been posting for a while. Can you point me to a time in your history of that where you criticized someone for, say, calling President Obama 'Barry?' Because I know from this post you're quite outraged by this and it's not some kind of sad play of 'offense-judo.'

[Cal Cetín]

See above

[Michael P]

How often has anyone in the comments section here called President Obama by abbreviating his first name like that, especially in the middle of a comment saying he was a beneficiary of alternative action? People wishing to denigrate him based on his name are more likely to include his middle name than to abbreviate his first name.

(Justice Thomas talked about his law school grades, and how some people thought he must not have earned those. Have we ever seen President Obama's undergraduate grades? Why not?)

[Cal Cetín]

Of course, I'd love to see the incriminating link where I failed to object to the use of "barry." By the way, nice try. Queen, sking me to rebut your ideological assumptions rather than furnish any evidence to support them.

[Cal Cetín]

It may well be that someone I blocked said something bad but I didn't respond because I had them blocked and mercifully couldn't see their remark

[Cal Cetín]

Oh, and it's possible I went through an interval (and Lord willing, these intervals will grow more frequent) where I didn't check the comments at this Web site or (perhaps) even skimmed the comments, missing some nugget of racism.

The problem is that I've blocked many of the out-of-the-closet racists (though apparently not all), so like I say, how can you tell if it's my silent acquiescence or my having blocked them which led me not to respond?

For example, some posters like to (non-ironically) invoke all sorts of anti-Jewish stereotypes. You sometimes see me responding, but usually not, and that could be because I didn't see the comment. Or maybe didn't think it worth a response.

Likewise, I try to keep the Rev blocked (unless a response indicates he said something peculiarly...flavorful), so it may be that I failed to respond to one or another of his insults.

There's another consideration. If someone posts link to the Elders of Zion (say), I'm charitable enough to the other commenters to assume they won't buy it, so a rebuttal isn't necessary.

But the constant racial insults against Justice Thomas, by so many "respectable" commenters, indicates maybe there's something which deserves rebutting...and rebuking.

[Michael P]

Rhetorical questions: Would QA ding you for someone else being the first to criticize someone for being uncivil towards Obama? Would QA ding you for not repeating someone else's criticism of incivility? Would QA ding you for the reasons you mention that you might not see or notice incivility?

And is it totally different when QA fails to criticize the VC's resident oral rape enthusiast for his mindless, uncivil bigotry?

[Cal Cetín]

OK, a search of "Barry Obama" in Reason's archives show that his grandmother and his "Choom Gang" associates called him Barry.

Now, we know from Obama himself that his grandmother was racist, so score one for Queenie.

As for the Choom Gang, just in case they're still alive (and litigious), I'll just say I can't prove they're *not* racist, which by Queenie's standards means they all are.

[David Nieporent]

(Justice Thomas talked about his law school grades, and how some people thought he must not have earned those. Have we ever seen President Obama’s undergraduate grades? Why not?)

Why would you expect to have? Did you see the grades of other presidents?

[Kazinski]

Bush the Younger's grades were an issue, and after refreshing my memory doing a search, NPR revealed Bush's grade transcript at Yale averaged 77/100 while John Kerry's (also at Yale) averaged 76.

Curiosity about President's grades are nothing new.

Joe Biden was at the bottom of his class in law school too.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"“Clarence is the most political of Justices and the least intellectual of Justices.”"

"Why use his first name, while using neither his last name nor (God forbid) his title?"

Ask Hillary, you bigoted, obsolete culture war casualty.

(I don't like it in either circumstance, but a clinger complaining selectively about Justice Thomas deserves nothing other than scorn.)

[Armchair Lawyer]

Don't be obtuse Rev.

Hillary is used to differentiate her from the other Clinton.

[Cal Cetín]

Like I said, I sometimes unblock the Rev when one of the responses he provokes shows that he said something particularly pungent.

I generally regret doing so, but it's like slowing down to watch a car wreck...you know you shouldn't, but the temptation is so strong.

Now, Artie, you ignorant slut, Hillary *asked for it.* "Clarence" didn't.

Check Amazon, you can find bumper stickers for her supporters - "Don't blame me, I voted for Hillary," and "Hillary is my homegirl."

Where are the "piss off your parents, vote for Clarence" bumper stickers?

[Free Exercise]

“Were Clarence a caucasian he would likely have only risen to the post of an Assistant D. A. in some backwater county, that is, if he had been able to get a law degree.“

Justice Thomas graduated from Yale when, like virtually every law school, it had blind grading. Only a racist would suggest that Thomas would be related to ‘backwater’ legal work.

[Gandydancer]

This complaint about an affirmative action hire does mot, of course, apply to the "wise latina".

Of course not.

That the GOP stumbled into the most principled jurist of our generation while groveling was of course a happy accident.

[Sidney r finkel]

Wow, a lot of focus on the use of the name "Clarence" and no response whatsoever with respect to the record/qualifications of Clarence that would have enabled him to rise above a level that his intellect/legal skills/research/writings would have entitled him to.

The point, which no one refuted, is that this individual rose to the Supreme Court as an Affirmative Action appointment by the Republican party to attempt to offset a perception of many that their opposition to civil rights/voting rights/etc. was racially motivated. And no one has pointed to any brilliant opinion that has come from Clarence in his decades on the Court.

Think about what the world would be like if Clarence's positions were law. The gay community would be incarcerated. A large number of individuals who did not receive justice or adquate counsel in their trial for capital offense would be executed, states would have the right to have a 'state religion' with the attendant coercion and stigma against those of a different religion and the use of state resources to support one religion to the exclusion of all others. Well you get the point.

Finally as a veteran of the civil rights struggle you should know that I use Clarence's first name not in any way with racial animus, but to show a lack of respect for an individual who earned his positions in life as a result of his race and not his qualifications. I refer to Trump as Donnie, to AOC as AOC, to Bernie as Bernie for the same reason.

Finally it seems the people who object to this conclusion that Clarence's position are not the result of merit but of race are opposed to affirmative action only when it fits their politics; if affirmative action results in a person who is unqualified but whose politics they agree with advancing via racial preferences, well they are fine with that.

[Cal Cetín]

"Finally as a veteran of the civil rights struggle you should know that I use Clarence’s first name not in any way with racial animus, but to show a lack of respect for an individual who earned his positions in life as a result of his race and not his qualifications. I refer to Trump as Donnie, to AOC as AOC, to Bernie as Bernie for the same reason."

The main difference is that Bernie and AOC welcome being identified as Bernie and AOC, and their *supporters* use those terms.

That leaves Trump, and at least "Donnie" is better than "Nazi," so you have that going for you.

[Cal Cetín]

Politics isn't exactly about merit, so it would be fairly difficult to erase the practice of "balanced tickets," putting someone on the Court's "Jewish seat," etc.

While we're waiting for race to be purged from political appointments, the least we can do is avoid racist policies when it comes to college admissions, employment, etc. Which was supposedly the objective of the civil rights movement, though be free to inform us how that part has evolved.

[Cal Cetín]

What do you know, @AOC is her twitter handle.

[Michael P]

Nobody bothered to rescue your unsupported, bigoted assertion because you already rejected the type of evidence that would show how wrong you are.

[Sidney r finkel]

Well it seems to have gone remarkably well.

The high school I attended no longer denies entrance to anyone but caucasians. Juries have Black members. African Americans can vote without fear of being attacked, killed, losing their jobs etc. The Universities of Alabama, Mississippi and a whole bunch of others admit minorities, lynching seems to have gone out of style, a mixed race marriage is legal despite the argument that it violates God's laws, baseball allows black players and the racists owners of both the professional baseball team and professional football team in Washington are consigned to the ashheaps of history.

I could go on but I won't as it just angers the racist remnants of the population.

[Cal Cetín]

"I could go on but I won’t as it just angers the racist remnants of the population."

So, there are those who think like you, and there are the supporters of lynching?

[Gandydancer]

You've gone on and on fuming already up and down this thread. Indeed, spare us further projections.

I, btw, am opposed to "affirmative action" by Republicans. Thomas is a gem, but the usual quality of their Migic Negro de jour is abysmal. See Tim Scott, Colin Powell....

[Gandydancer]

*sigh* ...Magic....

[Cal Cetín]

I'm guessing that while racial insults against Justice Thomas are all right, it would not be acceptable to say that "Sonia is an affirmative action appointee who is too emotional and is incapable of abstract thought"?

[Cal Cetín]

"But...but...I was just trying to show my contempt for an obviously-unqualified affirmative-action appointee! I mean, I saw *West Side Story!* I refer to Oprah Winfrey by her first name! And I always tip the Mexican hired help!"

[Gandydancer]

The "wise Latinx" example also occurred to me, as I mentioned upthread.

But self-awareness from Team Stupid is not a thing.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Which one is Team Stupid?

The side that operates Yale, Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton, San Francisco, New York, the Washington Post, the New York Times, ABC, NBC, and CBS . . . or the side that operates Wheaton, Grove City, Regent, Liberty, Hillsdale, West Virginia, Alabama, Fox News, NewsMax, OAN, Stormfront, Sinclair Broadcasting, and the Volokh Conspiracy?

[Cal Cetín]

"Think about what the world would be like if Clarence’s positions were law."

You would be able to grow your own marijuana locally, and smoke it, without the feds locking you up for interfering with interstate commerce.

In short, had Justice Thomas' position prevailed, maybe you'd be a bit more mellow (depending on your jurisdiction).

[Commenter_XY]

Truly, I cannot believe some of the comments about Justice Thomas that I am reading. Tremendously disappointing. I'm fine with disagreeing with his judicial philosophy, or maybe you do not like (or want) his judicial musings in written opinions. I get all that. Some of the comments here seem to be personal in nature. That, I don't get.

This man has an unbelievable life story. To go from segregation to SCoTUS is an amazing achievement, regardless of who that is. His resiliency and steadfastness in overcoming numerous life obstacles are inspiring to me, as an American. What I admire most about Justice Thomas is his willingness to stand alone in defense of his judicial principles. That is a very lonely road, and it takes special courage to do that.

These qualities are what we need in America right now.

[Ed Grinberg]

These qualities are what we need in America right now.

Agreed.