again, lots of good stuff here and not much to disagree with. On the Anita Hill incident(s), I think the divorce from his first wife clearly put him in some unsettled headspace. He struck me (from the documentary) as a socially awkward individual to begin with; couple that with a divorce and then put him in an office situation where he's the boss and makes numerous ill-advised and ham-handed attempts at flirting . . . well, that's a recipe for problems.
To be clear - I agree with you that his relationship with his grandfather was the most formative of his life. As far as hard-work by his family and himself - I agree, but he has numerous times said that affirmative action and policies supported by wealthy liberals have taken that away from black people, that it is another example of black people having their worth and self respect questioned. He has discussed how in law school he learned that everyone assumed his success and accomplishments were because of white people through affirmative action. By leave it alone - I mean that he does not want the government stepping in and supporting a lot of policies from the left - which he feels calls into question the accomplishments of black people when they do succeed. He has discussed and alluded to segregation not necessarily being a bad thing in the past. As far as the gift of being born in the USA - while I believe that he believes there are lots of opportunities in the USA, it can also be true that he firmly believes that it is a lot harder for black people and that racism is baked into the fiber of America - he has just concluded that nothing will solve that, he has discussed marches, affirmative action and white actors all failing. He discusses it in the context of affirmative action in the Bollinger decision.
You are entitled to your opinion....... but I would point out that just about every person on the Court has questionable credentials. So Thomas, 55 years ago concluded that white people will always believe his accomplishments are a result of the benevolent liberal white man that gifted his through affirmative action.... and you are expressing a similar sentiment a half century later. He often calls affirmative action a "badge of inferiority" It is racial paternalism to him - similar to the white saviour complex. It is why he believes all of these programs are really programs for white people.
No question - I have seen similar things happen to other people. It is my observation that men largely do not handle power/authority well, especially with women.
again, lots to agree with here. But I think his critique of affirmative action is shared by a lot of other (mostly conservative but not entirely) black intellectuals--Stephen Carter's Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby covers much the same ground for example. The affirmative action cases to be decided later this week are just the latest round of a genuine debate about that approach to rectifying past injustice. Thomas consistently argues you don't replace one form of prejudice with another form of prejudice. I expect the Court will decide against affirmative action . . . which will make for a very busy summer for my wife. But arguably that is the best outcome. The setting of race quotas in admissions, and DEI efforts more broadly, leads to tragic outcomes in specific individual cases involving real people facing real challenges. There are a tremendous number of students and employees at universities (and elsewhere) who are set up to fail from the very beginning because of well-intended but ultimately disastrous policies like affirmative action. And then there are the costs to others who now are being discriminated against because of those policies.
It wasn't just that his grandfather had a "you-don't-work-you-don't-eat" mentality; his grandfather also preached against welfare on the basis that receiving it gave the government a reason to get involved in your life. Because he saw state-sanctioned segregation and racism in the south, there was no reason to trust a government that suddenly wanted to be benevolent instead.
All this stuff about Clarence Thomas’ background is interesting but it still doesn’t explain why he flaunted professional ethics and doesn’t seem to feel that conflicts of interests apply to him.
Cannot stress how important this ruling was. The implications of this could’ve ended US democracy as we know it. I really hope this means that moves like thr TX legislature taking over Harris County’s elections will now be reversed.
Oh, I don't think he cares at all. Thomas went from being an iconoclast on the bench to being a pivotal "intellectual force". His wife is deeply ingrained in conservative politics and he knows that he faces no political consequences due to Congressional partisanship. He's got a lifetime appointment and he's not going anywhere.
Exactly. While I don't think he is an uncle tom, I just don't agree with his ideological views. Government(s) aren't the problem, it is people.
Our Texas Republicans are some of the most devious weasels of all. They rely on gerrymandering, voter suppression, and spreading lies, conspiracies, and hate to stay in power.
interesting assessment There’s a Time Bomb in Progressives’ Big Supreme Court Voting Case Win https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/supreme-court-voting-moore-v-harper-time-bomb.html excerpt: But Moore is not all good news. In the last part of his majority opinion for the court, the chief justice got the liberal justices to sign on to a version of judicial review that is going to give the federal courts, and especially the Supreme Court itself, the last word in election disputes. The court held that “state courts may not transgress the ordinary bounds of judicial review such that they arrogate to themselves the power vested in state legislatures to regulate federal elections.” *** It is this milder version of the independent state legislature theory that the court embraced in Moore. It did not spell out its contours, and whether to adopt the Rehnquist Bush approach or some other approach. But Kavanaugh, in a concurrence, endorsed the Rehnquist approach and said that in engaging in this second-guessing, federal courts need to compare election law in the state in earlier decisions. The greater the deviation, the more likely they’d be to find a violation of the independent state legislature theory. Make no mistake: This apparent new test would give great power to federal courts, especially to the U.S. Supreme Court, to second-guess state court rulings in the most sensitive of cases. It is going to potentially allow for a second bite at the apple in cases involving the outcome of presidential elections. In the 2020 presidential election, for example, Trump allies raised this theory in arguing that Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court could not extend the days for the receipt of absentee ballots by three days in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. There were not enough of these late-arriving ballots to make a difference in 2020, but if there had been, according to the approach laid out in Kavanaugh’s concurrence, the Supreme Court would have had to look at Pennsylvania court precedents to decide if the state court went too far in deciding matters under its own state laws. It easily could have decided the outcome of the election based on its view of this question. more at the link
Yes he doesn’t but all of this stuff about how Thomas thinks about affirmative action doesn’t address that he’s no longer following even very mild ethical standards. Conservatism doesn’t mean unethical but we see so many modern conservative thought leaders acting unethically.
First, I don't like the title. This isn't just a "Progressive" victory in the Supreme Court, it's a win for all Americans. It's absurd to think that legislators should have unchecked power, even if it means violating the State Constitution. This lawsuit wasn't about Progressive vs. Conservative; it was about common American tradition of check and balance vs. an extreme idea. Even the three dissenting justices, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch, didn't said they support the crazy theory; they believed the case should have been dismissed as moot since the NC Supreme Court had already reversed itself. It's always been interesting that the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, supposedly don't have the authority to overrule state courts. For example, in a 5-4 decision in 2019, Chief Justice Roberts and the majority ruled that federal courts cannot address claims of partisan gerrymandering. Yet, in the Bush v. Gore case, the Supreme Court did ruled over the state court's decision. Personally, I believe that the Supreme Court should have the ultimate authority over all courts, and giving federal courts slightly more power is acceptable to me.
not much to disagree with here, but I can't speak for Hasen the author or for Slate, both of which represent progressive perspectives will just comment on this, though, especially in light of someone's comment earlier in the thread that Thomas is "wholly" unsuited for the court. That's just nonsense. For example, Josh Blackman this morning has this to say about the mootness issue in yesterday's decision: Here, I want to focus on one particular aspect of the mootness inquiry. The Court held that it could vacate the "judgment" from Harper I. Ultimately, the Court did not vacate that judgment, but it could have. Therefore, because the possibility of vacatur existed, the controversy was not moot. But what would have been the effect of vacating the judgment from Harper I? Chief Justice Roberts writes that if the Court vacated the judgment from Harper I, "the 2021 plans enacted by the legislative defendants would again take effect." Roberts further quoted from counsel for the legislative defendants that the North Carolina Supreme Court "overruling Harper I [would] not negate the force of its order striking down the 2021 plans." In these two sentences, Chief Justice Roberts succumbed to the writ of erasure fallacy. A judgment does not operate against a statute; a judgment operates against parties. Justice Thomas spelled out the "deeper" problems with the Court's analysis. But the error that actually drives the majority's conclusion is much deeper. The majority evidently thinks that when Harper I held the 2021 Act unconstitutional, it entered a "judgment" affecting the 2021 Act as a statute, independent of its application to the legal rights of the litigants in this case. And the majority thinks that to reverse Harper I 's "judgment" would "negate the force of its order striking down" the Act, thus "alter[ing] the presently operative statutes of North Carolina." But, of course, the judicial power does not "operate on legal rules in the abstract"; it operates on the rights and liabilities of contending parties with adverse legal interests. California v. Texas (2021). The majority's reasoning cannot be squared with the judicial power vested by the Constitution, the case-or-controversy requirement, or the nature of judicial review. Yes, California v. Texas. I remember that case well. The Supreme Court could not issue any order that ran against the Affordable Care Act. The judgment could only run against plaintiff's who have injuries that can be remedied. Justice Thomas illustrates the profound problems with the majority's analysis: Instead, its animating idea (uncritically borrowed from petitioners) is that Harper I 's "judgment" operated against the 2021 Act as a statute. The majority describes Harper I's "judgment" interchangeably as "enjoining the use of the 2021 ma[p]" and "striking down the 2021 pla[n]." It then reasons that reversing that "judgment" would "negate the force of its order striking down the 2021 pla[n]," thus "alter[ing] the presently operative statutes of North Carolina" such that the 2021 Act would "again take effect." . . . This reasoning bears no connection to the judicial power of this Court or the court below. . . . Thus, a judgment binds the rights of the parties in that case, see Taylor, and it awards remedies that "operate with respect to [those] specific parties," California. In deciding any case, the court must "ascertai[n] and declar[e] the law applicable to the controversy"; this duty, in turn, implies "the negative power to disregard an unconstitutional enactment" in deciding the case. Massachusetts v. Mellon (1923); accord, Nicholson; Marbury v. Madison(1803). But this negative power of judicial review is not a "power per se to review and annul acts of [legislation] on the ground that they are unconstitutional," Mellon; "to change or to repeal statutes," or to issue orders that "operate on legal rules in the abstract," California. Courts of law simply do not render "judgments" that toggle statutes from "operative" to "inoperative" and back again, as if judicial review were some sort of in rem jurisdiction over legislative Acts. Roberts has no response to Justice Thomas on this foundational point. If Justice Thomas is right, then the case was moot, and should have been dismissed. Thomas is every bit the equal of every justice on the court, and quite possibly the intellectual superior to more than one.
I totally agree his conduct has been unethical. I'm not a fan of his philosophy or his conduct. I think he feels he's immune from consequences because of his lifetime appointment and an understanding that, thanks to our current politics, he will face no repercussions from Republicans in Congress because he gives them outcomes they like. In the absence of a "great awakening" among all Americans when it comes to judicial reform (lol) justices like Thomas will continue to exploit the benefits of lifetime appointments.
You don't get to sit on the highest court without superior intellect, lol. As for how he compares to others on the Court, well, I have my own opinion, but it's not as important as the main issue - the lack of professional ethics.
gently beg to differ, this is a thread on USSC decisions . . . so hard to see that Thomas's ethics are the "main issue." That topic deserves its own thread
