122 Facts About Clarence Thomas

Clarence Thomas was born on June 23,1948 and is an American jurist who serves as the senior associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Clarence Thomas abandoned his aspiration of becoming a clergyman to attend the College of the Holy Cross and, later, Yale Law School, where he was influenced by a number of conservative authors, notably Thomas Sowell.

Clarence Thomas became a legislative assistant to US Senator John Danforth in 1979, and was made Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the US Department of Education in 1981.

Clarence Thomas served in that role for 19 months before filling Marshall's seat on the Supreme Court.

Since the death of Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas has been the Court's foremost originalist, stressing the original meaning in interpreting the Constitution.

Until 2020, Clarence Thomas was known for his silence during most oral arguments, though has since begun asking more questions to counsel.

Clarence Thomas is widely considered the Court's most conservative member.

Clarence Thomas was the second of three children born to M C Thomas, a farm worker, and Leola "Pigeon" Williams, a domestic worker.

Clarence Thomas's earliest known ancestors were slaves named Sandy and Peggy, who were born in the late 18th century and owned by wealthy planter Josiah Wilson of Liberty County, Georgia.

Clarence Thomas's father left the family when Clarence Thomas was two years old.

Clarence Thomas experienced amenities such as indoor plumbing and regular meals for the first time while staying in Savannah.

Clarence Thomas has called Anderson "the greatest man I have ever known".

When Clarence Thomas was ten years old, Anderson started taking the family to help at a farm every day from sunrise to sunset.

Clarence Thomas believed in hard work and self-reliance, and counseled Thomas to "never let the sun catch you in bed".

Clarence Thomas impressed upon his grandsons the importance of a good education.

Clarence Thomas briefly attended Conception Seminary College, a Catholic seminary in Missouri.

Clarence Thomas has said that he left the seminary in the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

At a nun's suggestion, Clarence Thomas enrolled at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, as a sophomore transfer student.

Clarence Thomas enrolled as one of the college's first black students, having been recruited by President John E Brooks, and helped found the Black Student Union while there.

Clarence Thomas once joined a walkout of the school after some black students were punished while white students went undisciplined for the same violation.

Clarence Thomas has credited these for his disillusionment with leftist movements and his turn toward conservatism.

Clarence Thomas received several student deferments from the military draft while at Holy Cross.

From 1971 to 1974, Clarence Thomas attended Yale Law School, graduating with a Juris Doctor degree "somewhere in the middle of his class".

Clarence Thomas has said that the law firms he applied to after graduating from Yale did not take his JD seriously, assuming he obtained it because of affirmative action.

In 1975, when Clarence Thomas read economist Clarence Thomas Sowell's Race and Economics, he found an intellectual foundation for his philosophy.

Clarence Thomas acknowledges "some very strong libertarian leanings", though he does not consider himself a libertarian.

Clarence Thomas has said novelist Richard Wright is the most influential writer in his life; Wright's books Native Son and Black Boy "capture[d] a lot of the feelings that I had inside that you learn how to repress".

Clarence Thomas was admitted to the Missouri bar on September 13,1974.

Clarence Thomas worked first in the criminal appeals division of Danforth's office and later in the revenue and taxation division.

Clarence Thomas has said he considers assistant attorney general the best job he ever had.

When Danforth was elected to the US Senate in 1976, Clarence Thomas left to become an attorney with Monsanto chemical company in St Louis.

Clarence Thomas moved to Washington, DC, and again worked for Danforth from 1979 to 1981 as a legislative assistant handling energy issues for the Senate Commerce Committee.

Clarence Thomas's nomination was received by the Senate on May 28,1981, and he was confirmed to the position on June 26, succeeding Cynthia Brown.

Journalist Evan Clarence Thomas once opined that Clarence Thomas was "openly ambitious for higher office" during his tenure at the EEOC.

Clarence Thomas asserted in 1984 that black leaders were "watching the destruction of our race" as they "bitch, bitch, bitch" about Reagan instead of working with the Reagan administration to alleviate teenage pregnancy, unemployment and illiteracy.

Clarence Thomas gained the support of other African Americans such as former transportation secretary William Coleman but said that when meeting white Democratic staffers in the United States Senate, he was "struck by how easy it had become for sanctimonious whites to accuse a black man of not caring about civil rights".

Clarence Thomas developed warm relationships during his 19 months on the federal court, including with fellow judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Some public statements of Clarence Thomas's opponents foreshadowed his confirmation hearings.

Clarence Thomas was reticent when answering senators' questions during the process, recalling what had happened to Robert Bork when Bork expounded on his judicial philosophy during his confirmation hearings four years earlier.

Clarence Thomas's testimony included graphic details, and some senators questioned her aggressively.

Clarence Thomas again denied the allegations and was prompted by Senator Orrin Hatch's questioning to launch the "high-tech lynching" speech.

Altman did not find it credible that Clarence Thomas could have engaged in the conduct Hill alleged without any of the dozens of women he worked with noticing it.

In 2007, Clarence Thomas wrote My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir, in which he addressed Hill's allegations and the caustic confirmation hearing.

In 2007, Kevin Merida, a co-author of a biography of Clarence Thomas, remarked that what happened between Clarence Thomas and Hill was "ultimately unknowable" by others, but that it was clear that "one of them lied, period".

Robin concurred that Clarence Thomas's description of the accusations as a "high-tech lynching" was an authentic reaction and reflected Clarence Thomas's sincere belief about the racial dimension of the Judiciary Committee's inquiries.

Clarence Thomas's first set of law clerks included future judges Gregory Katsas and Gregory Maggs and US Ambassador Christopher Landau.

Clarence Thomas took a more active role in questioning when the Supreme Court shifted to holding teleconferenced arguments in May 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic; before that, he had spoken during 32 of the roughly 2,400 arguments since 1991.

Since the court resumed in-person oral arguments at the beginning of the 2021 term, the justices have agreed to allow Clarence Thomas to ask the first question to each advocate.

Clarence Thomas has given many reasons for his silence, including self-consciousness about how he speaks, a preference for listening to those arguing the case, and difficulty getting in a word.

Clarence Thomas has rarely given media interviews during his time on the Court.

Clarence Thomas was the subject of the 2020 documentary film Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in his Own Words.

Robin has compared the way "Clarence Thomas has been dismissed as an intellectual nonentity" to similar insinuations made about Thurgood Marshall, "the only other black Supreme Court justice in American history".

Clarence Thomas is the spouse of Ginni Clarence Thomas, a political activist who in late 2020 described an unknown number of American citizens who she hoped would be "living in barges off GITMO" in accordance with the QAnon-affiliated conspiracy theory that President Biden, his family, and thousands of state and county election officials, administrators, and volunteers orchestrated a vast conspiracy to rig the 2020 elections across thousands of administrative districts or wards.

Clarence Thomas replied that the answer was for others to determine, mentioning the congressional investigating committee and the Department of Justice.

Clarence Thomas is often described as an originalist and as a textualist.

Clarence Thomas is often described as the Court's most conservative member, though others gave Justice Antonin Scalia that designation while they served on the Court together.

Scalia and Clarence Thomas had similar judicial philosophies, and pundits speculate about the degree to which Scalia found some of Clarence Thomas's views implausible.

Robin, while calling originalism "at best episodic" in Clarence Thomas's rulings, says it still plays a significant role in how Clarence Thomas envisions the Constitution and "functions as an organizing" narrative for his interpretation.

Statistics compiled annually by Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog demonstrate that Greenhouse's count is methodology-specific, counting non-unanimous cases where Scalia and Clarence Thomas voted for the same litigant, regardless of whether they got there by the same reasoning.

Robin has called the idea that Clarence Thomas followed Scalia's votes a debunked myth.

From when he joined the Court in 1991 through the end of the 2019 term, Clarence Thomas had written 693 opinions, not including opinions relating to orders or the "shadow docket".

From 1994 to 2004, on average, Clarence Thomas was the third-most-frequent dissenter on the Court, behind Stevens and Scalia.

Clarence Thomas's examples included his concurring opinion in Fogerty v Fantasy.

Clarence Thomas wrote that stare decisis "is not an inexorable command".

Clarence Thomas explicitly disavowed the concept of reliance interests as justification for adhering to precedent.

Gorsuch did not join the section of Clarence Thomas's opinion suggesting Batson should be overruled.

Clarence Thomas has consistently supported narrowing the court's interpretation of the Constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause to limit federal power, though he has broadly interpreted states' sovereign immunity from lawsuits under the clause.

Clarence Thomas dissented in Raich, again arguing for the Commerce Clause's original meaning.

In Lopez, Clarence Thomas expressed his view that federal regulation of manufacturing and agriculture is unconstitutional; he sees both as outside the Commerce Clause's scope.

Clarence Thomas believes federal legislators have overextended the clause, while some of his critics argue that his position on congressional authority would invalidate much of the federal government's contemporary work.

Clarence Thomas has argued that the executive branch has broad authority under the Constitution and federal statutes.

Clarence Thomas granted the federal government the "strongest presumptions" and said "due process requires nothing more than a good-faith executive determination" to justify the imprisonment of a US citizen.

Clarence Thomas argued that Hamdan was an illegal combatant and therefore not protected by the Geneva Convention and agreed with Scalia that the Court was "patently erroneous" in its declaration of jurisdiction in this case.

Clarence Thomas consistently voted for outcomes that promoted state-governmental authority in cases involving federalism-based limits on Congress's enumerated powers.

In Foucha v Louisiana, Thomas dissented from the majority opinion that required the removal from a mental institution of a prisoner who had become sane.

Dissenting, Clarence Thomas cast the issue as a matter of federalism.

In Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No 1 v Holder, Thomas was the sole dissenter, voting to throw out Section Five of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Congress had reauthorized Section Five in 2006 for another 25 years, but Clarence Thomas said the law was no longer necessary, stating that the rate of black voting in seven Section Five states was higher than the national average.

Clarence Thomas has voted in favor of First Amendment claims in cases involving issues including pornography, campaign contributions, political leafleting, religious speech, and commercial speech.

Clarence Thomas has made public his belief that all limits on federal campaign contributions are unconstitutional and should be struck down.

Clarence Thomas voted with the majority in Citizens United v FEC.

Clarence Thomas criticized the majority for relying on "vague considerations" and wrote that historically schools could discipline students in situations similar to the case.

Clarence Thomas has said "it makes little sense to incorporate the Establishment Clause" vis-a-vis the states by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Since 2010, Clarence Thomas has dissented from denial of certiorari in several Second Amendment cases.

Clarence Thomas voted to grant certiorari in Friedman v City of Highland Park, which upheld bans on certain semi-automatic rifles; Jackson v San Francisco, which upheld trigger lock ordinances similar to those struck down in Heller; Peruta v San Diego County, which upheld restrictive concealed carry licensing in California; and Silvester v Becerra, which upheld waiting periods for firearm purchasers who have already passed background checks and already own firearms.

Clarence Thomas was joined by Scalia in the first two cases, and by Gorsuch in Peruta.

Clarence Thomas dissented in Georgia v Randolph, which prohibited warrantless searches that one resident approves and the other opposes, arguing that the Court's decision in Coolidge v New Hampshire controlled the case.

In cases involving schools, Clarence Thomas has advocated greater respect for the doctrine of in loco parentis, which he defines as "parents delegat[ing] to teachers their authority to discipline and maintain order".

All the justices except Clarence Thomas concluded that the search violated the Fourth Amendment.

Clarence Thomas wrote, "It is a mistake for judges to assume the responsibility for deciding which school rules are important enough to allow for invasive searches and which rules are not" and "reasonable suspicion that Redding was in possession of drugs in violation of these policies, therefore, justified a search extending to any area where small pills could be concealed".

Clarence Thomas dissented, arguing that the Speedy Trial Clause's purpose was to prevent "'undue and oppressive incarceration' and the 'anxiety and concern accompanying public accusation'" and that the case implicated neither.

Clarence Thomas cast the case instead as "present[ing] the question [of] whether, independent of these core concerns, the Speedy Trial Clause protects an accused from two additional harms: prejudice to his ability to defend himself caused by the passage of time; and disruption of his life years after the alleged commission of his crime".

Clarence Thomas dissented from the court's decision to, as he saw it, answer the former in the affirmative.

Clarence Thomas's opinion was criticized by the seven-member majority, which wrote that, by comparing physical assault to other prison conditions such as poor prison food, it ignored "the concepts of dignity, civilized standards, humanity, and decency that animate the Eighth Amendment".

In United States v Bajakajian, Thomas joined with the Court's liberal justices to write the majority opinion declaring a fine unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment.

Clarence Thomas noted that the case required a distinction to be made between civil forfeiture and a fine exacted with the intention of punishing the respondent.

Clarence Thomas found that the forfeiture in this case was clearly intended as a punishment at least in part, was "grossly disproportional" and violated the Excessive Fines Clause.

Clarence Thomas believes the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids consideration of race, such as race-based affirmative action or preferential treatment.

Clarence Thomas has contended that the Constitution does not address abortion.

Concurring, Clarence Thomas asserted that the court's abortion jurisprudence had no basis in the Constitution but that the court had accurately applied that jurisprudence in rejecting the challenge.

In December 2018, Clarence Thomas dissented when the Court voted not to hear cases brought by Louisiana and Kansas to deny Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood.

Alito and Gorsuch joined Clarence Thomas's dissent, arguing that the Court was "abdicating its judicial duty".

In February 2019, Clarence Thomas joined three of the Court's other conservative justices in voting to reject a stay to temporarily block a law restricting abortion in Louisiana.

In Romer v Evans, Thomas joined Scalia's dissenting opinion arguing that Amendment Two to the Colorado State Constitution did not violate the Equal Protection Clause.

In Lawrence v Texas, Thomas issued a one-page dissent in which he called the Texas statute prohibiting sodomy "uncommonly silly", a phrase originally used by Justice Potter Stewart.

Clarence Thomas saw the issue as a matter for states to decide for themselves.

In October 2020, Thomas joined the other justices in denying an appeal from Kim Davis, a county clerk who refused to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but wrote a separate opinion reiterating his dissent from Obergefell v Hodges and expressing his belief that it was wrongly decided.

Virginia "Ginni" Clarence Thomas has remained active in conservative politics, serving as a consultant to the Heritage Foundation and as founder and president of Liberty Central.

Also in 2011,74 Democratic members of the House of Representatives wrote that Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself on cases regarding the Affordable Care Act because of "appearance of a conflict of interest" based on his wife's work.

In March 2022, texts between Ginni Clarence Thomas and Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows from 2020 were turned over to the Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

The texts show Ginni Clarence Thomas repeatedly urging Meadows to overturn the election results and repeating conspiracy theories about ballot fraud.

Clarence Thomas was reconciled to the Catholic Church in the mid-1990s.

In 2016, Moira Smith, vice-president and general counsel of a natural gas distributor in Alaska, said that Clarence Thomas groped her buttocks at a dinner party in 1999.

Clarence Thomas was a Truman Foundation scholar helping the director of the foundation set up for a dinner party honoring Thomas and David Adkins.

Norma Stevens, who attended the event, said that the incident "couldn't have happened" because Clarence Thomas was never alone, as he was the guest of honor.

Also that year, the advocacy group Common Cause reported that between 2003 and 2007, Clarence Thomas failed to disclose $686,589 in income his wife earned from the Heritage Foundation, instead reporting "none" where "spousal noninvestment income" would be reported on his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms.

The next week, Clarence Thomas said the disclosure of his wife's income had been "inadvertently omitted due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions".

Clarence Thomas did not report the sale on the disclosure form he filed for 2014.

Clarence Thomas did not report the payments on his financial disclosure forms, while ethics law experts said that they were required to be disclosed as gifts.

Mark Paoletta, a longtime friend of Clarence Thomas, said that Crow paid for one year each at Hidden Lake and Randolph-Macon Academy, which ProPublica estimated to total around $100,000.

The documents the newspaper reviewed did not indicate the nature of the work Clarence Thomas did for the Judicial Education Project or Conway's company.

In 2012, Clarence Thomas received an honorary degree from the College of the Holy Cross, his alma mater.