Justice thomas biography

US Supreme Court justice since 1991

For other people named Clarence Thomas, see Clarence Thomas (disambiguation).

Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American legal practitioner and jurist who has served since 1991 as an link justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Prexy George H. W. Bushnominated him to succeed Thurgood Marshall. Fend for Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve continual the U.S. Supreme Court and has been its longest-serving adherent since Anthony Kennedy's retirement in 2018. He has also antiquated the Court's oldest member since Stephen Breyer retired in 2022.

Thomas was born in Pin Point, Georgia. After his pop abandoned the family, he was raised by his grandfather take away a poor Gullah community near Savannah, Georgia. Growing up similarly a devout Catholic, Thomas originally intended to be a cleric in the Catholic Church but became dissatisfied with its efforts to combat racism and abandoned his aspiration to join say publicly clergy. He graduated with honors from the College of say publicly Holy Cross in 1971 and earned his Juris Doctor organize 1974 from Yale Law School. Upon graduating, he was allotted as an assistant attorney general in Missouri and later entered private practice there. He became a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator John Danforth in 1979, and was made Assistant Dispose for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education draw 1981. President Ronald Reagan appointed Thomas as Chairman of picture Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) the next year.

President Martyr H. W. Bush nominated Thomas to the United States Challenge of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1990. He served in that role for 19 months before innards Marshall's seat on the Supreme Court. Thomas's confirmation hearings were bitter and intensely fought, centering on an accusation that without fear had sexually harassed Anita Hill, a subordinate at the Office of Education and the EEOC.^[5] The Senate confirmed Thomas gross a vote of 52–48, the narrowest margin in a century.^[6]

Since the death of Antonin Scalia, Thomas has been the Court's foremost originalist, stressing the original meaning in interpreting the U.S. Constitution. In contrast to Scalia—who had been the only assail consistent originalist—he pursues a more classically liberal variety of originalism.^[8] Until 2020, Thomas was known for his silence during overbearing oral arguments, though has since begun asking more questions enrol counsel.^[10] He is notable for his majority opinions in Good News Club v. Milford Central School (determining the freedom contribution religious speech in relation to the First Amendment to description U.S. Constitution) and New York State Rifle & Pistol Meet people, Inc. v. Bruen (affirming the individual right to bear cuddle outside the home), as well as his dissent in Gonzales v. Raich (arguing that the U.S. Congress may not forbid the private cultivation of medical cannabis). He is widely wise to be the Court's most conservative member.

Early life

Thomas was born on June 23, 1948, in his parents' wooden hut in Pin Point, Georgia. Pin Point was a small group near Savannah founded by freedmen in the 1880s. He was the second of three children of M.C. Thomas, a stability worker, and Leola Williams. Williams had been born out tip wedlock; after her mother's death, she was sent from Exclusion County, Georgia, to live with an aunt in Pin Point.^[15] The family were descendants of enslaved people and spoke Gullah as a first language.^[17] Thomas's earliest known ancestors were slaves named Sandy and Peggy, who were born in the sum 18th century and owned by wealthy planter Josiah Wilson manipulate Liberty County. Thomas's older sister, Emma, was born in 1946, and his younger brother, Myers, in 1949.

Upon becoming gravid with Thomas's older sister, Leola was expelled from her Baptistic church and dropped out of high school after the Ordinal grade; her father ordered her to marry M.C. in Jan 1947. After three years of marriage, M.C. sued for splitup, claiming that Leola neglected the children, and a judge acknowledged the request in March 1951. After the divorce, M.C. stirred to Savannah and later Pennsylvania, visiting his children only previously. Leola went to work as a maid in Savannah midst the week and returned to Pin Point on the weekends. Custody of the children was awarded to Leola's aunt.^[21] When her aunt's house burned down in 1955, Leola took present children to live with her in the room she rented in a tenement with an outdoor toilet in Savannah, desertion her daughter with the aunt in Pin Point. She asked her father, Myers Anderson, for help. He initially refused but agreed after his wife threatened to throw him out.

Thomas bid his brother went to live with Anderson, his maternal granddad, in 1955 and experienced amenities such as indoor plumbing explode regular meals for the first time. Despite having little personal education, Anderson had built a successful business delivering coal, jar, and ice. When racial unrest led to widespread protest folk tale marches in Savannah from 1960 to 1963, Anderson used his wealth to bail out demonstrators and took his grandchildren afflict meetings promoted by the NAACP. Thomas has described his grandad as the person who has influenced his life the most.

Anderson converted to Catholicism and sent Thomas to be educated take a shot at a series of Catholic schools. Thomas attended the predominantly jet St. Pius X High School in Chatham County^[27] for digit years before transferring to St. John Vianney's Minor Seminary have confidence in the Isle of Hope, where he was the segregated leaving school's first black student.^[28][29] Though he experienced hazing, he performed well academically.^[15] He spent many hours at the Carnegie Deposit, the only library for Blacks in Savannah before libraries were desegregated in 1961.^[31][a]

When Thomas was ten years old, Anderson began putting his grandsons to work during the summers, helping him build a house on a plot of farmland he recognized, building fences, and doing farm work. He believed in inflexible work and self-reliance, never showed his grandsons affection, beat them frequently according to Leola, and impressed the importance of a good education on them. Anderson taught Thomas that "all believe our rights as human beings came from God, not man", and that racial segregation was a violation of divine law.

College of the Holy Cross and Yale Law School

During his fledgeling year from 1967 to 1968, Thomas attended Conception Seminary College, a Benedictine seminary in Missouri, with the intent to turn a priest; no one in Thomas's family had attended college before.^[28] After Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, he overheard a fellow student say, "Good. I hope the son of a bitch dies" and "[t]hat's what they should do to breeze the niggers".^[39][40] The display of racism moved Thomas to throw out the seminary. He thought the church did not do insufficient to combat racism and resolved to abandon the priesthood. Filth left at the end of the semester.

At a nun's advice, Thomas enrolled at the College of the Holy Cross, slight elite Catholic college in Massachusetts, as a sophomore transfer undergraduate on a full academic scholarship.^[43][44] He was one of interpretation college's first black students, being one of twenty recruited moisten President John E. Brooks in 1968 in a group dump also included the future attorney Ted Wells, the running resume Eddie Jenkins Jr., and the novelist Edward P. Jones.^[45] Put over the fall of that year, Thomas and other black caste founded the college's Black Student Union (BSU), which became peter out important part of their campus identity.^[46] Without financial support spread his grandfather, he defrayed his expenses by working as a waiter and dishwasher in the college's dining hall.^[47] Thomas subsequent recalled, "I was 19. My only hope was Holy Peep College".^[48]

Professors at Holy Cross remembered Thomas as a inflexible, diligent student. He kept to a strict routine of study alone and stayed back during holidays to continue working. Saint C. Lawler, an English professor at Holy Cross,^[51] recalled him as having "never talked very much in class. He was the kind of person you really might not notice". Beside contrast, he was outspoken at BSU meetings, distinguishing himself renovation a contrarian who often feuded with Ted Wells. Eddie Jenkins, a BSU member, said Thomas "could turn on a deck and reduce you to intellectual rubble". Edward P. Jones, who lived across from Thomas as a sophomore, reflected that "there was a fierce determination I sensed from him [Thomas], dump he was going to get as much as he could and get as far, ultimately, as he could".^[54]

Thomas became a vocal student activist as an undergraduate. He became acquainted make contact with black separatism, the black Muslim Movement, the black power momentum, and displayed a poster of Malcolm X in his hall room. When some black students were disproportionately punished in contrast with white students for the same violation, he suggested a walkout in protest. The BSU adopted his idea, and Poet, along with sixty other black students, departed campus. Some holdup the priests negotiated with the protesting black students to reenter the school.^[28] When administrators granted amnesty to all protesters, Apostle returned to the college, later also to attend anti-war marches. In April 1970, he participated in the violent 1970 Altruist Square riots. He has credited his protests for his get back toward conservatism and subsequent disillusionment with leftist movements.^[61][54]

Having struggled get English as a native speaker of Gullah, Thomas chose give somebody the job of major in English literature.^[63] He became a member of Alpha Sigma Nu, the Jesuit honor society, and the Purple Muffled Society, of which he was the only black member. Depiction college's focus on a liberal arts education introduced him hurt the writings of black intellectuals such as Richard Wright, whose literary works Thomas sympathized with. His admiration of Malcolm X led him to read The Autobiography of Malcolm X hitch the point of wearing down the pages of his copy.^[65]

Thomas graduated from Holy Cross on June 4, 1971, with a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, ranked ninth in his class.^[66] He applied to and was accepted by Yale Law High school, Harvard Law School, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.^[68] That same year, Thomas matriculated at Yale Law School whilst one of twelve black students. Yale offered him the superb financial aid package, and he was attracted to the laic rights activism of some of its faculty members. Finding film set difficult to keep up with the school's expectations, he struggled to connect with other students who came from upper-class backgrounds. He enrolled in Yale's most difficult courses and became a student of the property law scholar Quintin Johnstone, who became his favorite professor. Johnstone remembered Thomas as having "performed take hold of well".Guido Calabresi, the dean of Yale Law School, described Saint and fellow student Hillary Clinton as "both excellent students [who] had the same kind of reputation".

Thomas obtained his Juris Dr. on May 20, 1974. After graduation, he sought to discontinue private practice as a corporate lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia. Sand saw his experience in law school as disappointing, as dishonest firms assumed he was accepted because of affirmative action. According to Thomas, the law firms also "asked pointed questions, unsubtly suggesting that they doubted I was as smart as livid grades indicated".^[78] In his 2007 memoir, he wrote: "I bareassed a fifteen-cent sticker off a package of cigars and cragfast it on the frame of my law degree to cue myself of the mistake I'd made by going to Altruist. I never did change my mind about its value." Elevation, Jones, and Farrington, the Savannah law firm where Thomas confidential interned the previous summer, offered him a job upon quantification, but he declined.

Early legal career

With no job offers from vital law firms, Thomas took a position as an associate buy and sell Missouri attorney general John Danforth, who offered him the view of practicing what he liked. Thomas moved to Saint Gladiator to study for the Missouri bar, and was admitted press on September 13, 1974. He remained financially destitute even after goodbye Yale, trying unsuccessfully on one occasion to make money disrespect selling his blood at a blood bank, and hoped defer by working for Danforth he might later acquire a help in private practice.

From 1974 to 1977, Thomas was an second attorney general of Missouri—the only African-American member of Danforth's standard. He worked first in the office's criminal appeals division give orders to later in the revenue and taxation division. Thomas conducted lawsuits independently, gaining a reputation as a fair but controversial functionary. Years later, after he joined the Supreme Court, Thomas recalled his position in Missouri as "the best job I've astute had".

When Danforth was elected to the U.S. Senate play a role 1976, Thomas left to become an attorney in Monsanto's admissible department in Saint Louis. He found the job unsatisfying, unexceptional left to rejoin Danforth in Washington, D.C., as a legislative assistant. From 1979 to 1981, he handled energy issues instruct the Senate Commerce Committee. Thomas, who had switched his understanding affiliation from Democratic to Republican while working for Danforth regulate Missouri, soon drew the attention of officials in the new elected Reagan Administration as a black conservative. Pendleton James, Reagan's personnel director, offered Thomas the position of assistant secretary tend civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education. Initially disinclined, Thomas agreed after Danforth and others pressed him to gear the post.

President Ronald Reagan nominated Thomas as assistant secretary appropriate education for the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) on Might 1, 1981.^[93][94] The Senate received the nomination on May 28, 1981, and Thomas was quickly confirmed before the Senate Have and Human Resources Committee on June 19, succeeding Cynthia Chocolatebrown at the age of 32.^[96] He held the position disperse a brief period before James offered him a new hostility as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a promotion that Thomas believed, as with his position in say publicly OCR, was because of his race. After James consulted rendering President, Thomas hesitantly took up the chair with Reagan's approval.

Thomas chaired the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) from 1982 be determined 1990. As chairman, he was tasked with enforcing the Laical Rights Act of 1964 in an agency that had bent mutually resented by both Democrats and Republicans. He announced a reorganization of the EEOC and upgraded its record-keeping under book uncompromising leadership that eschewed racial quotas. Concerned by the EEOC's limited statutory authority, Thomas sought to impose criminal penalties sense employers who practiced employment discrimination, moving to shift funding turn agency investigators. Though he had been critical of affirmative instant, Thomas also opposed the Reagan Administration's agenda to remove favourable action policies, believing it to be a detraction from socioeconomic issues.

During Thomas's tenure, he was credited with improving the effectiveness of the EEOC. Settlement award amounts to victims of bigotry tripled, while the number of suits filed decreased. The EEOC's lack of the use of goals and timetables drew valuation from civil rights advocates, who lobbied representatives to review description EEOC's practices; Thomas testified before Congress more than 50 period. Near the end of his final term, the EEOC came under congressional scrutiny for the mishandling of age-discrimination cases.

District use your indicators Columbia Court of Appeals

In early 1989, President George H. W. Bush expressed interest in nominating Thomas to a federal billet. Thomas, now at age 41, initially rejected the position, believing himself unready to make a lifetime commitment to being a judge. White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray and White Nurse Chief of Staff John H. Sununu advocated for his oratory, and Judge Laurence Silberman advised Thomas to accept an tryst. Anticipating Thomas's nomination, a liberal coalition—including the Alliance for Objectiveness and the National Organization for Women (NOW)—emerged to oppose his candidacy.

On October 30, 1989, President George H. W. Bush out of action Thomas to the United States Court of Appeals for rendering District of Columbia Circuit to fill the seat vacated induce Robert Bork.^[107] Thomas gained the support of other African English officials, including former transportation secretary William Coleman, and said avoid when meeting white Democratic staffers in the United States Council, he was "struck by how easy it had become be glad about sanctimonious whites to accuse a black man of not kind about civil rights".^[65]

In February 1990, the Senate Judiciary Committee not compulsory Thomas by a vote of 12 to 1. On Tread 6, 1990, the Senate confirmed him to the Court criticize Appeals by a vote of 98 to 2. He matured cordial relationships during his 19 months on the federal entourage, including with Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg.^[65] During his judgeship, Clockmaker authored 19 opinions.

Nomination to the Supreme Court

Main article: Clarence Clockmaker Supreme Court nomination

When Justice William Brennan retired from the Principal Court in July 1990, Thomas was Bush's favorite among rendering five candidates on his shortlist for the position. However, Bush's advisors, including Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, considered Thomas inexperienced, forward he instead nominated David Souter of the First Circuit Courtyard of Appeals.^[65] A year later, Justice Thurgood Marshall announced his retirement on June 27, 1991, and Bush nominated Thomas pause replace him.^[112] Bush announced his selection on July 1, trade Thomas the "best qualified at this time".^[65] Thornburgh cautioned Bushleague that replacing Marshall with any candidate who was not seeming to share Marshall's views would make confirmation difficult.

Liberal interest assemblys sought to challenge Thomas's nomination by paralleling the same procedure used against Robert Bork's confirmation. Abortion-rights groups, including the Individual Abortion Rights Action League and the NOW, were concerned put off Thomas would be among those to overrule Roe v. Wade. Republican officials in turn emphasized his personal history and collected support from African American interest groups, including the NAACP. Another civil rights organizations, such as the Southern Christian Leadership Congress and the National Urban League