Clarence Thomas: Personhood and Politics

Clarence Thomas: Personhood and Politics

For those old enough to remember the extreme controversy surrounding his nomination process in the early 1990s, Clarence Thomas is undoubtedly one of the most well-known Justices currently sitting on the Supreme Court, though perhaps not for the best reasons. His fame -- or infamy -- has certainly diminished in the nearly two decades he has spent on the bench in the highest court of the land, but he remains a somewhat controversial figure for many of his decisions, and especially for his decision making process. An examination of Thomas' biography as it pertains to the Court, the press coverage concerning his appointment and subsequent decisions, and especially the decisions themselves all lead to a very interesting and comprehensive understanding of his character and politics both as an individual person and as a sitting Supreme Court Justice.

Confirmation Controversy: Anita Hill, Sexual Harassment, and Credibility

Though many issues were raised during the Senate's confirmation proceedings regarding Justice Thomas, by far the most famous and controversial were the allegations of sexual harassment brought by Anita Hill. Nominated in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush and eventually confirmed in October of that year, Thomas was replacing the well-respected Thurgood Marshall, and though he was eventually exonerated of Hill's allegations, public opinion in that matter weighed heavily on the Senators involved in the confirmation hearings (Overby et al. 1992; Fraser 1992). His confirmation, in fact, has led some political scientists to note a shift in the confirmation process and its implications on the democratic system (Fraser 1992). Others claim that the hearings simply brought to light issues that had long existed (Overby et al. 1992).

Background and Experience Prior to Supreme Court Appointment

The controversy surrounding Thomas' appointment and confirmation to the United States' Supreme Court was not limited to his alleged harassment of a female co-worker. Thomas had faced a Senate hearing only a year before when accepting his first-ever judgeship, on the U.S. Court of Appeals on the District of Columbia Circuit (Overby et al. 1992). Prior to this, Thomas had served for nearly a decade as the Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity, which is where the alleged harassment of Anita Hill occurred (Fraser 1992). The fact that he had only been a judge for a year certainly added to the controversy surrounding his appointment, though regardless of one's view of his politics this lack of experience has not been considered overly present in his jurisprudence (Gerber 1999).

Despite his recent comments that the Court is too packed with Ivy League graduate who do not represent the broad spectrum of the American people, Thomas himself is a graduate of Yale Law School, one of the top law programs (and one of the oldest Ivy League schools) in the country (Klonick 2009). His career in politics began as an Assistant Attorney General in Missouri, and this position led to his continued advancement through the political ranks until he reached the pinnacle position in the American legal system, the Supreme Court (Overby et al. 1992). Throughout his advancement, his Southern and Catholic heritage have been linked to his political views by many analysts (Klonick 2009).

Clarence the Conservative

Justice Thomas' views are decidedly conservative, showing a clear belief that the federal government should be weakened in order to strengthen state and local power, while at the same time upholding the strength of the executive branch within the federal government (Gerber 1999). He is also a stalwart advocate of the need for complete judicial independence from the legislative and executive branches of the government and even from public opinion, a stance which was no doubt affected by his own highly political confirmation hearings (Thomas 1999). A stated attempt to depoliticize judicial decisions, in fact, has been a running theme with Justice Thomas, to the point that he does not even see any necessity or even any benefit to hearing oral arguments in cases that come before the Court, and Thomas himself has not actually asked a single question of attorneys on any side of any issue being argued for more than four years (Klonick 2009).

Evidence of the limits that Justice Thomas believes should be imposed on the federal government can be found in most cases in which he has published an opinion. In Staples v. United States (1993), Thomas wrote the majority opinion in which it was determined that, in order to convict Staples of possessing an illegal automatic firearm, it was necessary for the government to prove that Staples had knowledge (which he claimed he did not) that the gun had been modified to fire automatically (Oyez 2009). Though six other Justices joined in overturning Staples' conviction, it was Justice Thomas who wrote the majority opinion, and he makes it clear that anything not explicitly allowed or made illegal by the law -- either in the Government's actions or in the actions of individual citizens -- is left to individual (or local, it is implied) discretion (Oyez 2009).

How Do You Get to the Supreme Court? Restraint, Restraint, Restraint

In keeping with his generally conservative politics, Justice Thomas is also an advocate of judicial restraint. The Staples case demonstrates this quite clearly, as do other of his published rulings. In Archer et ux v. Warner (2002), Justice Thomas dissented form the majority opinion, which used what was considered the intent of a bankruptcy exemption for fraud to overturn the decisions of lower courts and demand that the Warners pay the Archers a previously agreed-upon settlement (Oyez 2009). In his dissent, Justice Thomas makes it very clear that he believes the law needs to speak explicitly for itself, and the he considered the majority opinion of the Court as a form of activism, whereby laws were extended and amplified but the decision, rather than rigidly upheld (Oyez 2009).

Strict Construction

This view is also quite evident when it comes to Justice Thomas' interpretation of the Constitution, as is the Supreme Court's primary duty in the schema of the judicial system. Again, his dissenting opinion in a particular case, Jones v. Flowers (2005), makes this quite clear. Having repeatedly mailed property tax bills and notices to a home that Jones owned but no longer occupied, his home was eventually sold to the state of Arkansas (in the person of Flowers). The Court ruled that the state had not fulfilled its duties under the Fourteenth Amendment, but that it should have made extra effort in this regard. Again, Justice Thomas felt that any body of law, especially the Constitution, should be read as narrowly and explicitly as possible, and that Arkansas had therefore met its responsibilities (Oyez 2009).