Book Review by Alison Hoover
Clarence Thomas’s recently published memoir, My Grandfather’s Son, reveals much about the past that has shaped this Supreme Court Justice’s judicial philosophy and personal life. Throughout the course of the book, Thomas acknowledges the many people who encouraged him and shaped the outlook that has guided him through many difficult experiences. However, it goes beyond expressing Thomas’s gratitude and informing the reader of the difficulties that he has faced, including poverty, hard labor under his grandfather’s watchful eye, and the racial prejudices of fellow students in nearly all-white high school, seminary, and college. It also shows how a strong work ethic and the will to not only persevere, but exceed expectations, in difficult situations have led him to earn many honors, including a seat on the Supreme Court.
Throughout his memoir, Thomas devotes many pages to chronicling his development through many political views, starting from his grandfather’s theory of self-reliance and moving through various radical stages during and after college, and finally gradually moving toward a moderate and independent conservative position in which he continues to critique failing policies regardless of party affiliation. Before leaving the seminary, Thomas travelled to Kansas City to participate in his first political march: one to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., shortly after he was shot. At Holy Cross, he became more involved in the political movement to end segregation and racism in America. He describes his beliefs at the time by saying, “Racism had become the answer to all my questions, the trump card that won every argument.” Toward the end of college, though, Thomas entertained doubts concerning his newfound radical beliefs. He observes, “The black people I knew came from different places and backgrounds—social, economic, even ethnic—yet the color of our skin was somehow supposed to make us identical in spite of our differences. I didn’t buy it. Of course we had all experienced racism in one way or another, but did that mean we had to think alike?” Questions like these and attending protests he no longer fully supported led Thomas to gradually break from his self-described radical views, saying, “I had better things to do than be angry.”
Attending Yale Law School and finding a job led Thomas to further question his faith in liberal policies supposedly aimed at helping blacks. His new friend John Bolton asked him in a debate concerning seat belt and motorcycle laws, “Clarence, as a member of a group that has been treated shabbily by the majority in this country, why would you want to give the government more power over your personal life?” Thomas then compared this idea to his grandfather’s ideas concerning self-reliance and the personal responsibility one must recognize as its direct corollary. When he first realized affirmative action might have secured his spot at Yale, he says, “As much as it stung to be told that I’d done well in the seminary despite my race, it was far worse to feel that I was now at Yale because of it,” and he enrolled in extra classes in more demanding fields of law to demonstrate he was capable of succeeding without lowering any standards. Despite these achievements, Thomas had difficulty finding a job after graduation. He accepted a job working for Missouri’s Republican attorney general Jack Danforth, who promised to “treat [him] the same as everyone else in the office, no better and no worse.” Prosecuting cases as a criminal-appeals attorney, Thomas “grew more wary of unsupported generalizations and conspiracy theories, both of which had become indispensable features of radical argument.” Throughout his career, mostly in various government positions, Thomas engaged in many discussions leading to a more conservative outlook in politics, including several with Thomas Sowell. He describes this transition carefully though, saying, “When, later on, I began to associate with conservatives, it was because their ideas were closer to mine than liberals’ ideas, not because I saw myself as one of them.”
Thomas’s transition to independently developing his own opinions continued in his judicial philosophy. He applied fellow DC judge Larry Silberman’s advice to evaluate each case by first asking, “What is my role in this case—as a judge?” Thomas explains this, saying, “The role of a judge … is to interpret and apply the choices made in [the legislative and executive] branches, not to make policy choices of his own.” Thomas even shied away from ascribing to a particular judicial philosophy, saying, “A philosophy that is imposed from without instead of arising organically from day-to-day engagement with the law isn’t worth having. Such a philosophy runs the risk of becoming an ideology, and I’d spent much of my adult life shying away from abstract ideological theories that served only to obscure the reality of life as it’s lived.” Instead, he strives to follow ideas and cases to their logical conclusion. For example, in his dissent in Johnson v. California (2005), a case alleging discriminatory practices in a California prison, which examined legal precedents concerning deference to prison administrators and the strict scrutiny required in examining allegations of discriminatory practices, Thomas wrote, “The majority is concerned with sparing inmates the indignity and stigma of racial discrimination. California is concerned with their safety and saving their lives.”
Thomas’s candor in describing race-related policies has earned him both criticism and support from voices across the political spectrum, especially during his confirmation hearings. Controversy has not prevented him from continuing to express these beliefs, such as in his concurring opinion in the case Missouri v. Jenkins (1995), when he wrote, “It never ceases to amaze me that the courts are so willing to assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior.” Thomas’s memoir provides insight regarding the events that led him to openly express such ideas and why he is surprised to find courts failing to give children’s education priority over a perceived acceptable level of diversity.
Alison Hoover is a senior majoring in Political Science.
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