Clarence Thomas at 78: a short reflection
I was just a kid when President George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Because I had seen Bush in person multiple times on military bases growing up, I paid closer attention than most kids probably would have to the news surrounding Thomas’s nomination.
The Anita Hill allegations exposed me, probably earlier than I should have been, to some of the uglier details of adult politics. I recognized some of the senators on the Judiciary Committee. Joe Biden was familiar to me because of his disastrous 1988 presidential campaign, but for reasons I still can’t fully explain, Alabama Sen. Howell Heflin is the figure who has always stayed with me from those hearings. Maybe it was the heavy deep Southern accent and I had no real knowledge of him previously.
There was obviously real doubt that Thomas would be confirmed. I remember thinking it looked like a lost cause because of the negative media coverage surrounding his nomination. He helped save his nomination by his steely and perhaps cantankerous testimony. The final vote was 52-48.
Years later, as an undergraduate at Ole Miss, I took a Southern Studies class where we discussed racial violence, particularly the history of lynching in the Deep South. When the professor asked us to offer a modern example connected to the subject, I brought up Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings and his use of the phrase “high-tech lynching.” I could tell she did not care for the answer and quickly pivoted. Maybe it was because of her politics, or maybe because Thomas complicated the usual categories through which those discussions were framed. I intentionally brought him up for a reason though and her dismissive reaction stayed with me. At the very least her reaction seemed to suggest Thomas is of no importance.
He’s now the second longest serving U.S. Supreme Court justice in history and probably one of our best civic educators today. I read and reviewed Thomas’s autobiography “My Grandfather’s Son.” Autobiographies are usually awful books but his is quite good. It uplifts so many of those important and enduring values that are desperately needed now.
I’ve learned a great deal from Thomas over the years. In a recent piece, I wrote about why his speech at the University of Texas at Austin was so compelling: instead of merely applauding civic pride for America250, he reinforced that modern progressivism carries with it a dangerous anthropology.
He continues to remind Americans of the importance of the founding, and of the responsibilities that must accompany our rights.
Much of his life and work points back to a truth he expressed powerfully in his dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges:
Our Constitution—like the Declaration of Independence before it—was predicated on a simple truth: One’s liberty, not to mention one’s dignity, was something to be shielded from—not provided by—the State.
When I was in seminary and taking a class on Thomas Aquinas, I wrote a paper on Thomas’s natural law influences, which I was a little surprised my professor ended up loving. Writing it helped me to see at an even deeper level how closely connected law needs to be to moral truths.
I admire Thomas because I feel aligned with him from a worldview perspective. But the stories I’ve heard about him also reinforce the sense that he is a friend and champion of the common man. He does not seem especially worried about, or influenced by, elite opinion. Nobody is close to perfect, of course. But what I admire most is that Thomas appears so clearly anchored in conviction rather than popular acceptance. In the end, if America is going to recover its true meaning and purpose, we need examples of that kind of courage. Clarence Thomas has spent his life reminding us that such conviction is still possible.
—Ray Nothstine
— The Federalism Beat