Judge Thomas on Elitism

An opinion piece about Justice Clarence Thomas by Pajama's Media's Richard Miniter provides another example of why I like Judge Thomas so much: he's not into the elitism that characterizes so many people inside the Beltway.

Another thing that bothers him about the court is its fixation on Ivy League pedigrees. He told a story about a woman working her way through American University law school at night. Somehow, she became an intern at the court and asked him for advice. Later, when she was in desperate straits, she applied for a secretarial job at the court. Thomas backed her, but made her promise to finish law school in four years. She did. She went on to clerk for two other federal judges. When she applied to clerk for him, he accepted her. Immediately, court watchers said she was “unqualified.”

Thomas shot his eyebrows up. He is clearly mad at the memory. “Unqualified? They had not seen her work. It was only because she was not a member of their [Ivy League] club.”

The fact that she went to law school at night must really have irked them.

(Note: Thomas is a Yale graduate).

I've long admired Judge Thomas for having the courage to stick by his conservative and Constitutional ideals; this is admirable enough for anyone these days, but especially so for a black American. Black Americans who hold conservative opinions are always characterized as "Uncle Tom's" and such for getting off the plantation owned by race pimps like Je$$ie Jack$on (pun intended).

I also admire him for sticking with the brutal confirmation process he endured in 1991, and seeing it through to a successful confirmation.

I admire him even more for the sound, Constitutional rulings he has made since his appointment to the Supreme Court. Sadly, many of the elitists and race pimps write him off as some sort of stooge or shadow of Judge Scalia, but they are profoundly wrong.

I wrote a letter to Judge Thomas back in the early to mid 1990's thanking him for some of the good judicial opinions he was already rendering back then. He took the time to reply with a brief but personally signed (not printed) note of thanks for my letter. (I still have it).

I look forward to reading his new memoir: "My Grandfather's Son." Judge Thomas is one of the best of the (few) good guys in Washington.