Clarence Thomas: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Anita Hill TRIED to tell us!
Photo Credit: The New Republic
Issue #315 OpEd May 8, 2023
I remember the Supreme Court hearings for Clarence Thomas and the testimony by Professor Anita Hill. My mother was glued to the TV (there were no recording capabilities then) and hung on every word.
It wasn't just the accusations of sexual harassment, as bad as those were. Professor Hill was trying to warn us about his character in general.
Clarence Thomas is trying to frame himself as a poor boy from a big family in rural Georgia who made it big. He has a video that tries to portray him as a regular guy who enjoys traveling the country in an RV and parking in Walmart lots.
What that video doesn't show is his numerous trips on private planes, yachts, and trips to far-off lands, all paid for by a far right-wing billionaire who became "close friends" with Thomas only after Thomas was on the Court.
As an associate justice with a lifetime tenure on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), Clarence Thomas is one of the most controversial figures in American jurisprudence and he has been involved in some of the most high-profile and consequential cases of our time.
The Early Life of Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas was born on June 23, 1948, in Pin Point, Georgia, a small community outside of Savannah. He grew up in a working-class family and attended seminary in the hopes of becoming a Catholic priest. However, he left the seminary and transferred to Holy Cross College, where he graduated with a degree in English literature.
He went on to attend Yale Law School, where he was one of only a few African American students at the time. After law school, Thomas worked for several years in various government positions before rising to prominence as the Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights under President Ronald Reagan.
In 1991, Anita Hill, a law professor and former employee of Thomas, testified during his confirmation hearings that he had sexually harassed her. Thomas vehemently denied the charges and was ultimately confirmed to the court by a narrow margin. Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy were two of the Senators who voted to confirm Thomas.
The hearings brought the issue of sexual harassment into the national spotlight and inspired many women to come forward with their own stories of abuse and harassment.
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Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court
As a member of the Supreme Court, Thomas has been a reliable conservative vote on many of the court's most consequential cases. He was a key vote in the Citizen's United decision, which allowed unlimited corporate spending on political campaigns. He also wrote the majority opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, which effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Thomas has been a fierce critic of affirmative action and has consistently voted to restrict abortion rights. Thomas has stated that he believes that birth control should be banned and that Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark SCOTUS decision which ruled in 2015 that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples was decided in error.
He never mentions that in another Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia (1967), it was decided that laws banning interracial marriage like that of Clarence and Ginni Thomas, violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Those provisions are the same ones that protect same-sex marriage.
Speaking of Ginni Thomas, she has also been involved in conservative politics and activism even as the wife of a SCOTUS justice. She is the founder of Liberty Central, a conservative advocacy group that lobbies for limited government and individual freedom.
Ginni Thomas has been a vocal supporter of Tea Party candidates and causes and has been involved in several controversial incidents, including leaving a voicemail for Anita Hill in 2010, asking her to apologize for her testimony during Thomas's confirmation hearings.
Mrs. Thomas told the Jan. 6 panel during lengthy testimony that she still believes false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. She or one of her organizations helped fund buses of insurrectionists and she texted or emailed several of Donald Trump's inner circle prior to January 6 to encourage them to stop the peaceful transfer of power to the duly elected Joe Biden.
Over the course of its history, the Supreme Court has seen several justices resign or impeached due to scandals. But the growing incidents of breaches of ethics by Justice Thomas and dark money payments to Clarence and Ginnie Thomas or their relatives have clouded Thomas' tenure on the Court.
Although there are increasing calls for Thomas to resign from the Court, he will not do that. Like almost all Republicans of his ilk, Thomas does not believe he's done anything wrong. There are several high-level Republicans who continue to defend him and are repeating Thomas' proclamation from 1991 that he is being subjected to a "political lynching."
Chief Justice John Roberts is doing almost nothing to address the several claims of various improprieties by Republican-appointed justices on his Court.
Any and all Articles of Impeachment for any government employee must come from the House of Representatives, and this barely Republican majority of the current House will not move to impeach Thomas.
The only things we can and must do is to win back the House, re-elect JoeBiden for president, and greatly increase our majority in 2024. Only then can we impeach Clarence Thomas, call out Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch for questionable financial activities, and re-balance the Court by expanding the number of associate justices to thirteen from the current nine members.
What do you think should be done about Clarence and Ginni Thomas? Let us know in the Substack Notes feature.
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