Justice Thomas worked for 32 years to end Affirmative Action even though he benefitted from Yale's Affirmative Action. (Article Here). Justice Thomas was the unlikely person to replace Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. (Article Here). Justice Thomas complained openly that more should be done to reverse Justice Marshall's legal work to advance Black citizenship, add more rights for women and the indigent, the accused and convicted, protect marginalized religions and people with unpopular viewpoints. Justice Marshall was a civil rights lawyer.
Thomas was a government tax lawyer and then worked for Monsanto, the gigantic chemical company responsible for working on nuclear weapons, inventing artificial sweeteners, DDT (Good Doc Here), AstroTurf, LED's, Genetically Modified Crops, Celebrex and Roundup. (Wiki Here).
Who is Clarence Thomas? In 1948 Thomas was born in shack in Pin Point, Georgia. Pin Point is a tiny town founded after the US abolished slavery.
The community is Gullah. Gullah, or Gee-Chee, is a unique language arising from the African roots of slaves and English. Thomas grew up in a house that still used an "outhouse" instead of a flushing toilet. His biological father failed to participate in his childhood. His mother's shack burned down and Thomas lived with his grandfather. His grandfather, Myers Anderson, was violent and strict. Grandfather Anderson believed that a Black person in America needed to work twice as hard to get ahead. His Grandfather often beat Thomas or had someone else beat him when he was too tired. However, at least in theory, part of it was to drive Thomas to work hard. His grandfather got him into a catholic school that was taking black children at a time when there was still segregation. His grandfather is a complicated person because it is hard to square the grandfather's physical torment with the aspiration educational support. Yet, that was the case. His grandfather was a strong supporter of the Democrats and Civil Rights Leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King. Thomas was studying to become a priest back then. However, he dropped out because the seminary's racism was so bad that they celebrated King's death and that was too much for Thomas. His grandfather kicked him out of the house as well.
Clarence Thomas got a scholarship to the College of the Holy Cross, a private Catholic college in Massachusetts.
One of Thomas’ former Holy Cross classmates said he was “inspired by the Black Panthers.” This is to the point that he started dressing like them and fixed a Malcolm X poster on his wall. (Article Here). He eventually applied to and was admitted to Yale Law School. Yale Law school confirmed they followed an affirmative action policy when Thomas went to its law school. (Article Here). (This is why so many call Thomas's striking down of affirmative action in the recent Supreme Court ruling hypocritical. Article Here. But Yale defended its former student. Article Here). After Yale, Thomas failed to get a high paying prestigious law firm job. For a long time Thomas seemed to hate Yale Law School, then he sort of came around later in life when he seemed to morph from Malcolm X fan to Republican Appointee. (Article Here).
He then got a job working for John Danforth, the Missouri state Attorney General, dealing with tax and revenue issues in 1974. Three years later Thomas was hired by Monsanto from 1977-79. Then Thomas rejoined John Danforth when Danforth was elected to US Senate and Thomas served as a "legislative" aid. John Danforth was a Republican. He also represented the interest of Monsanto because Monsanto was and is headquartered in Missouri. (See here). Monsanto reached out to Clarence Thomas to get Senator Danforth to sign a letter that Monsanto wrote regarding something about the environment and that mud turtles do not need any protection. This is from a Harvard Law article about the strange aspect of Justice Thomas's legal career:
"Indeed, Thomas’s only private sector experience was almost three years working as a lawyer for Monsanto, and this stint was followed by two years advising Senator Danforth on environmental and energy issues. When members of the newly elected Reagan Administration sought to hire him away from Danforth, their first offer was to be an advisor to the White House on energy and environmental policy, as that was thought to be Thomas’s specialty." (Quoted from Harvard article here).
After that, Republican Ronald Reagan appointed Thomas as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in the United States Department of Education in 1981. A year later, Republican President Reagan named Thomas named Chairman of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and served in that capacity until 1990. President Bush Sr. nominates Thomas to the Supreme Court in 1991 and yes, that's when the Anita Hill revelations come out. (Wiki Here).
Anita Hill accused and testified in Congress that Clarence Thomas Sexually Harassed her while he was the Chairman of the Government agency charged with prosecuting Sexual Harassment. This was long before the #MeToo movement and shows that our culture has not come very far from then, despite the evidence. Of course, Thomas was appointed to the Supreme Court where he started the anti-liberty work that Trump's recent appointees helped him finish. One odd note, before Ginni Thomas was smothering Trump's White House executives with QAnon conspiracies in the hopes that Trump would trash the 2020 free and fair election (Article Here), she had called up Anita Hill and demanded Anita Hill apologize to Clarence Thomas. (Article Here). On October 9, 2010, Ginni left a message on Anita Hill's voicemail saying:
"I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband, . .So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay, have a good day."
Brandies Professor Anita Hill said the message was inappropriate, that she testified truthfully and has nothing to apologize for. Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson, reporters for The Wall Street Journal, wrote a book about it called
"Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas. (Amazon Here). The book shows how in 1987 Clarence Thomas publicly complained that an African American who wanted to advance in conservative circles had to "become a caricature of sorts." Yet, to get on the Supreme Court, Justice Thomas played the role that his Republican handlers managed for him. It also shows that Thomas's legal credentials were not on par with the pedigree of people who are chosen for the highest court. Finally, the book also lays out that not all known witnesses that would corroborate Ms. Hill's testimony were called. Many witnesses who knew Clarence Thomas back in Yale Law School verified Thomas's obscene comments. Henry Terry, who had was with Mr. Thomas at Yale Law School, remembered that Mr. Thomas could sound elegant in the courtroom but "profane, scatological and graphic" with his friends. "That's my boy," said Mr. Terry when Anita Hill testified. "That's him talking." Too bad American did not hear that then. Now look where we are.
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