The first is that affirmative action reinforces the stigma that shadows African-Americans. Among many whites, blackness signals a deficit of intellect, talent, and skill.
In the same way that enslavement marked all black people, free or slave, as inferior, affirmative action—here Thomas borrows directly from the language of Plessy v. The second way affirmative action continues white supremacy is by elevating whites to the status of benefactors, doling out scarce privileges to those black people they deem worthy. Put simply, Thomas believes that affirmative action is a white program for white people. We see this argument in Grutter v.
Bollinger, a affirmative-action case concerning the University of Michigan Law School. In the early nineteen-nineties, the school adopted an affirmative-action policy in order to create a more diverse student body. Barbara Grutter, a white applicant who was denied admission, alleged that she was a victim of racial discrimination and that the policy violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
Thomas also dissented in Grutter. The simplest, most effective way for the Law School to diversify itself would be to become less selective. It could accept anyone who completed a certified program. Thomas does not believe this to be a constitutional value, much less one the Court should honor. Bakke, which declared the policy constitutional—is that diversity has an educational benefit: students will be exposed to different views and voices, which will challenge their beliefs.
It marks black people as victims and whites as saviors. In keeping with his conservative black nationalism, Thomas sees in such integration real harm to black people. Common experience and common sense confirm this understanding.
Rather than setting up a conditional, he is presenting the inability to end racism as the condition of American society. In this sense, the story of Clarence Thomas is the story of the last half-century of American politics. It is a story of defeat, not only of the civil-rights movement and the promise of black freedom but of a larger vision of democratic transformation, in which men and women act collectively to alter their estate.
The citizens of the freedom struggle believed that society was made, and could be remade, through politics. Many of their successors, including Thomas, no longer believe that kind of change is possible. A deep and abiding pessimism now pervades our politics, transcending the divisions of right and left.
Clarence Thomas, the most extreme Justice on the Supreme Court, turns out also to be the most emblematic. Should he remain on the bench for another nine years, he will be the longest-serving Justice in American history. In the case of Flowers v. Mississippi, a majority of Supreme Court Justices found that the prosecutor, Doug Evans, racially discriminated against Curtis Flowers.
Thomas disagrees. By Jeffrey Toobin. Thomas has lectured blacks about the evils of affirmative action. Yet he made it into Yale Law School because of an affirmative action program. Then there was Thomas' public confrontation in with Anita Hill, the black woman who accused of him of sexual harassment. Many black women, in particular, still believe that he lied when he denied sexually harassing Hill.
Thomas vigorously denied that he did anything wrong. Thomas is sworn in on September 10, , during his confirmation hearings. But it's Thomas' voting record that has cemented the cynicism many blacks feel toward him. Critics say he has consistently voted against black people as well as other marginalized groups: women , LGBTQ people , religious minorities and death row inmates.
He is the first Supreme Court justice to openly criticize the high court's landmark civil rights ruling, Brown v. Board of Education. And he joined a high court decision -- Shelby County v. Holder -- that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act, the crown jewel of the civil rights movement.
His vote on Shelby contributed to "the most unjustifiable and hurtful decision imposed on black America in the past half century," Randall Kennedy, an author and professor at Harvard Law School, wrote in a recent article on Thomas.
Ferguson, Giles v. Harris, and Korematsu v. United States," Kennedy wrote. He has a bleak vision of integration. You won't hear many white conservatives address these deeper questions that many black people have about Thomas.
Why is that? I have a theory. It's part of what I call the Clarence Thomas con -- a way to divert people's attention away from the more unpleasant aspects of Thomas' legacy. It's far easier to mislead the public about the true nature of Thomas' isolation in the black community than to defend accusations that his judicial decisions harm black people and other marginalized groups.
Or to deny charges that his opposition to affirmative action is "at war with his own biography. Focusing on Thomas' biography also takes away attention from his pessimistic views about integration and some white Americans. One of the reasons why The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. It's a beautiful vision of an integrated America for which countless people literally died. But I wonder if many people understand Thomas' bleak view of racial progress. He is a persistent critic of integration.
He once said, "The whole push to assimilate simply does not make sense to me. He's also skeptical about white America's ability to see past skin color. He once told a black reporter: "There is nothing you can do to get past black skin. I don't care how educated you are, how good you are at what you do -- you'll never have the same contacts or opportunities, you'll never be seen as equal to whites.
Thomas believes that "white supremacy is ineradicable in America," says Corey Robin, author of "The Enigma of Clarence Thomas," a new biography that has earned widespread praise. Follow him on Twitter: kenblackwell. You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page , on Twitter usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters usatoday.
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