A Conversation with Justice Thomas

[Music] [Applause] it is so great to have you here tonight with all these students to talk a little bit about your life in your time on the court your life has been described as a remarkable American story starting out in poverty it's a child with Georgia in Georgia moving to a seat on the nation's highest court can you tell us a little bit about what it was like growing up in the South in the 1950s well thank you for doing this you and I are the two least likely people to be up here it's sort of we're introverts and I often joke introverts of the world unite but that sort of means we have to go to a meeting the first of all thank you all for inviting me out to be a part of this and to be so warm and you're welcome the it's a little embarrassing I have to say that this is uh vennett this sort of a long time I cannot get used to such warmth but the you know there's much made of you know where people start but this is one country where it's what you do with that start that's so important I think we're kind of forgetting that my grandfather always you know the people I grew up around the know if you saw the movie the help but the those ladies and the help or more like the people I grew up around and when I would go back home they always thought I was sort of this beacon this person who was living what they thought should be done and they would reach in their garments and pull out a dollar and remember these are people who made $3 a day cleaning houses and stuff and they would give me one third of that too boy as they would say I'd used their the way they said it boy gets you education and so they put a lot of faith in you and I think this was a part of the fabric of the country things are certainly different now but it was hope very very hopeful and you know I you know of course I have never really disavowed where I came from I think it's it's wonderful I like where I came from I like when I grew up where I grew up and how I grew up so it's a part of that but I think it's they what they taught us is you should do something with it and then what you should do with it as a law clerk in your chambers was having a lot of talks about work ethic and you and your brother used to have to get up before dawn and help your grandfather in the field how did those experiences in your grandfather's work ethic in particular shape your perspective and influence your work well my grandfather's view of things in those days weren't as secular as they are now his only education his philosophy came from the Bible and he believed because of our fallen nature we were destined to work with to earn everything with the sweat of our brow he would often say that and you were part of that was that you had to work from Sun to Sun and I've heard that a thousand times the problem with him is he was a literalist that's when they come that's sort of what they call us on the court now if you actually think words should mean something oh you're literalists so I was in I was actually in in in Waco Ken Starr at killing a Ken Starr invited me there another great man but he the I was asked why we whether or not I was a textualist and I said I think all of us are textualist because if you're riding down the street and you see a sign that says stop you stop [Applause] so [Applause] so I make to some extent we're all text ulis you know no officer I thought stop in my jargon meant speed-up that'll really work or I was looking at it and we're in a normative way [Applause] so your grandfather did have a lot of an impact and encouraged you in faith how is your faith how did it help to shape your childhood and then you know it's really you know you're a person of strong faith and you know we don't go around we don't bother other people whether we sort of just mind our business and it helps us with our own lives and those of us who've lived the wild life can have some sharp edges and I actually walked away from the faith for 25 years and as I said him said to you all I ran away and crawled back so I'm not leaving again and the I think it gives you a strength Justice Scalia and I used to talk about this it gives you a strength to do things the right way and I think we were blessed with a formation talking with Paul Scalia recently I was Justice Scalia used to wonder why we were so much alike Clarence guy which is how did you get here maybe that's he was really really funny somebody but you know it's he's from the north on to the south totally different backgrounds and yet we agreed on so much and the recently Paul Scalia said if it was our Catholic formation and I think there's something to that that we were taught that we were supposed to do things a right way not use your religion that that violated arrows but that the oath meant something and that it meant that like we were required to a grammar school every paper you had you start everything by putting jmj at the top Jesus Mary and Joseph and so you [Applause] so you so for every single paper you know and go I'm in college you know jmj but me you know seriously and they could taught you that there was a certain way you did things there was a right way in the wrong way that you started with the texts you were honest about it I mean it's like your paper on office on officers you know you started you start with the language you start you worked through it it's like what we were trying to do in chambers that there was a right way to go through that process not with the answer already in mind that was dishonest and I think that's what do you it and then it gives you the strength that when you find the answer it's like professor Blackman was just saying you know the introduction jeans.i introductory introduction though that it takes courage sometimes takes more than you can think you can muster to stand up and say this is the answer I found just think again look at Harlan in Plessy versus Ferguson do you think he was greeted and with open arms to write what he wrote and do you think that the in a society would that was that had was quite racialist do you think that is it or you think blacks are equal to whites under the Constitution do you think they greeted him and warm up we're in the south and I think it took a bit of courage and I think a lot of times that that it's going to require some courage and I think you get that would you say so we talk about your childhood then you've talked about how it was kind of tough transitioning from the South up to New England for college and law school and you went through a period in the late 60s feeling maybe some anger being a bit of a rebel what caused you to change out of that you know it was you know you as my my grandfather was quite irritated by quite upset with me I was I was really not a pleasant you and he would literally when I went home he would get up and walk out of the room that he was so disgusted with me and he would say that I didn't raise you to be that way that's still I think it had sometimes still bothers me but then I we went to Harvard to Cambridge we were a nanny war rally and then we were on the 15th April 15 1970 and we went over to Cambridge to free the political prisoners have no idea which political prisoners were over there but do you never when you're mad you know you never ask sensible questions and so we get over there and we ride all night and this tear gas and things like that and the next morning we were back in Worcester Massachusetts if we drove back and after all of that and I said what did I just do and I was walking in front of the chapel and Holy Cross and I remember standing directly in front of the Blessed Sacrament and I said God if you take hate out of my heart I'll never hate again that began the long process and it was a long process of not responding to things in a hateful way and not being defined by these negative emotions but that was the morning of April 16 1970 and I think it took seeing what I had become and what I could become in the in Cambridge Massachusetts to wake me up and to see what my grandfather was seeing in me those were your college days and then you went to Yale Law School and so we've got a lot of students here tonight and the thick of their law school career good luck did you what did you learn at Yale in your time there at that and that's a trick question [Laughter] you talk very positive really a lot of times about your time at Yale yeah I mean what have you learned or and is there anything you might do differently what wisdom would you give to people who are students now about how they can make the most of that experience this would be and it sort of sound almost contradictory but I yelled turned out to be the perfect school for me it was not class wise or I'm not gonna say it was easy but it turned out in the end to be in retrospect to be have been perfect for me what I would do different is I would not be as negative or cynical I think I allowed myself to be pulled into a world of negativism cynicism to be to use race as as some as sort of an edge to toward other people not an edge and it's sort of an advantage but just an Angora meanness I think that wasn't right the and then I go back now I was there recently and I realized and walking through they had New Haven what I missed all the things that I'm really interested in that today that I would experience there were lectures there were opportunities other students with different points of view I think the Dean was just making the point about debate you know to go and to hear other people to hear people who've traveled the world I hadn't been anyplace to listen I think Kagan was there to go listen to him there were there were recitations there were plays there was just a way to expand yourself so I missed that opportunity I would not if I were to go to law school today miss that there were the opportunity to grow intellectually and also I would not walk away from my faith the way I did that was the missing ingredient I think I'd be when I look at the kids who like you who understood more where they were going and worse more anchored I think most of them were had a strong faith in very very challenging environments and then I would not assume my faith one of the things that people here may not know about you is that you actually do spend an awful lot of time today and throughout your career in law school classrooms teaching for six or seven years you've taught a constitutional law seminar with a former clerk why have you seen that as something important for you to do with all the time that it takes to prepare I think you should learn constitutional law at some point that didn't mean I could not figure I could not figure out substantive due process that really eluded I could not figure out selective incorporation a partial incorporation absorption I mean these things did not sound like technical terms to me but you know I in seriousness I enjoy I like being around students and in small groups you know I'm no good in them I you know I think a part of it is I think you owe them more than a handshake and when I teach it's just you can toss things around you don't we don't proselytize we don't tell them what to think and I love it just one student said at the end of our seminar we've been teaching it now six or seven years and one student said you know I will never look at law the same I have no idea what his ideological outlook was but what we were trying to do is get them to think not to be led not to be told what to think not to say here's the law you got it but to get them to think to read the cases that we've all read Locke nor that people have different opinions about and to dig into it and to think about it and it's absolutely fascinating when you see the eyes open there was another young woman who actually shared your undergraduate extrait Maryland and she went to GW law school like you and then she said I went to college thinking that I was going to be taught how to think they told me what to think so then she said I went to law school I'm hoping to be taught how to think and they told me the last two years what to think and she said finally this is a class where I got to learn how to think and he said will you teach it next semester I said oh my god no there's no I said but the I think those were the things that really excite me you know they see the kids invested in learning not what their conclusions are that's their business maybe but telling them how much work it takes to get to that conclusion and how when you reach it you have an obligation to dig into sort of the vulnerabilities were the downsize to your argument because it's not the gospel it's an argument it's an opinion and it's fascinating to watch them I enjoy that I also like choosing courses when we walked in here that saw one of the tables had star in decisis people love to toss that around when they run out of arguments so I think story decisis is important but I think we should dig into it if it's that important and so I taught a course at the University of Georgia law school with one of my former law clerks the to dig into it to spend time from the beginning to you know the through the development of that but it was just it was an interest structural injunction that taught of course just because people toss around these structural injunctions without asking why and I wanted to do it outside the context of a case because a case when you get when we get the cases and we've got lots of judges here and the case has its contours like this table and it doesn't allow you to wander around and and and and consider how did we get here you've got to decide this case that's what's in front of you and it is premise on the existing law and we so the being in a classroom allows you to go beyond it's like your article okay you you that was outside the context we weren't talking about a government official and in the a case about the appointment Clause you wanted to go back and take a look at what it meant at the beginning what officer meant in the but you couldn't do that much work in context of a case so that's one of the reasons why I teach that's great and not only do you spend a lot of time in a lot of different law schools but you're also known for a lot of diversity and your law clerk hiring hiring people from lots of backgrounds why have you considered that important to fill chambers with lots of difference I just didn't really like the phone diversity that we're all attached to now where you look at somebody's skin color or their do you know their this person these immutable characteristics and say oh that's diversity because this person's black or this person's a woman or this person's this or that I think when it when you get when you're talking about intellectual pursuit you're talking about how people think about things how they reason about things so it is fascinating to have kids from a lot of different backgrounds and I also think up at the court where Ivy League heavy and I truly believe they're smart kids in a lot of different places that's not to denigrate the ideas [Applause] but you know this here Justice Scalia again now I used to talk about this he'd tend to like a lot of people from Harvard but the I this year I have no Ivy League law clerks that and that's not that that's not that unusual I mean your year I had no Ivy League law clerks the but I had a source really really bright if not grille hit law clerks and I think you can get them a lot of different places at different points in their lives you get them out of BYU you can get them out of Berkeley you can get them out of GW get them out of Georgetown I mean I've had you can get them you can get them out of Creighton I've had amount of credit in your year so I just think that the the and I think it changes the way your chambers operate the and I like kids like yourself who comes from modest backgrounds I really like to see kids who have had to whose parents have to worry about replacing the the motor in the car or the they have to worry about the tuition have to worry about the new dress I like kids from that not kids who feel like it all happens rather easily and what I find is that these kids tend to have a different perspective on what we do at the court and I like kids from different parts of the country on the the issues from the West and you know we you and you see someone in the East and they talk about waters right issue we talk about all these sort of exotic issues but when you're in western Kansas or western Nebraska Eastern Colorado and in parts of California water is king you have got to they understand that they the when I first got to the court there you had justice O'Connor there you and justice White was still there they understood the West and I'm just using that as an example that the people from different parts of the country with different experience enrich your environment and we do that is certainly within chambers this week in social media I read that justice Sotomayor was at a conference and she said that the two of you could not be more different in your judicial philosophies but more similar and how you interact with people and so how do you and your colleagues maintain collegiality on the court even when you often have sharp disagreements on the law you know I don't think first of all that I have the gospel on the things sometimes we people have an opinion and they think that it was handed down on high to them and there was a burning bush involved and the I just think sometimes it's just an opinion and you can arrive at it in different ways also the that is an institution where we have we have a lot of cases the not as many about half as many as we used to have the separate issue but the we make a lot of work out of a little yeah but the I just think it's we can't take ourselves seriously we have to take the work seriously and I think the court has done a fairly decent job I hope that continues justice Sotomayor and her point was simply that I think that we kind of we do get along at the court and it is a civil environment the it seems around us in society where if you disagree it's like not just that you disagree on that particular issue but you war against the person and and you see it even in the commentary on the court this effort toward defamation the effort toward if you can't win the argument you defame the opponent you attack the character the opponent the intentions are the motives of the opponent you don't look at the argument that's our new society and god forbid if we get what we these people are aiming at because then you know I'm reading finishing a book on the tutors and you know the net result is that sort of approach throughout society as we've got back to the Tower of London kind of a sea it may not physically be that way but certainly we're back to that where you actually do you don't destroy people with the executioner you execute them with words so yeah you're always very collegial in your opinions and yet you are very committed as well to first principles and originalism even when it means you might not be in the majority in the court why have you I mean how do you stay true to your principles case-by-case why have you seen that so important to be on the forefront you know it's first of all I have the most principled wife in the world you know we have been we you know I've been very very blessed we sort of I think we have we can be honest with each other I mean she doesn't do law and I don't do politics but it's like there's an honor to like you can look your spouse in the eye and know you've done your best you can look your law clerks people who matter to you in the eye and for all of you I mean you're extremely I mean you're brilliant person so you know I mean you see you come to chambers you see how we do our work right and I put what I promise you all is that there will be no deep dark secrets there are no games going on you know if I'm playing games you know if I'm cutting corners and I can't go home day after day and dishonor in a dishonorable way and my wife not notice that I'm dishonorable you all I can't see you all you day after day in the job and not know you not know I'm being dishonorable on the and I think ultimately over time your colleagues figure it out and then so much of what you do is subject to scrutiny and I think why do the job if you can't do it in an honorable way why do it that goes back to my point about how we get your our faith etc on what if for example I were to run into my grandfather again what would I say that if I had dishonored him so I don't it's not that big a deal I mean so people beat you up they just they think they are taking something away you I don't think any of us would prefer to be beaten but I prefer that than to be you know one other thing I want to ask you about before we turn to some questions that have been submitted by students is we've just passed the two-year mark since you're the court has lost your very good friend Justice Scalia how have things changed in his absence for you to ask couple of years yeah you know not to the better on the you know he was for me a friend he's to kidding me when we it was he was a lot of fun to be around and they sort of painted him as this tough guy you know and he'd like but he was just he was he was my friend he's always referred to me his brother Clarence and I would go in and you know he early on they were saying that he was my boss and he was very upset about it he thought I had got them in the into whatever it is I got them into and they were blaming him for leading me into it and so I sat down with him and comforted him and told him I said Nino you know in this world you're white and I'm black and that basically means that you're always the boss and I'm the Hoss and I'm that's the white man's burden oh they never came up again but we it was we from the very beginning there was a trust and he was someone he never unlike much of society he never had an image of me that I was to live up to he never had a stereotype like much of what you see in the media or in the country now is they have an image of what I'm supposed to be and if I deviate from that something's wrong with me I was thought that was bizarre but the he never did so you were the individual got to define yourself and we it was wonderful and he I could trust him I mean I had a friend and even when we disagreed there was brother Clarence you know you I still think one of my favorites is when he descended from one of my opinions and he told me that my opinion was a Liberty destroying cocktail that was absolutely that was a good one so the silver noon went to lunch at the end of the term with him and he was sitting there trying to figure out what to drink and I said you know get your Liberty destroyed [Applause] in short I'm missing a lot so we have some great questions from students if that's okay to pose a couple of those to you and I guess everybody knows that you and mrs. Thomas travel a lot around the country on your RV so the students would like to know what your favorite trip is that you've taken in your bus you know we absolutely love being together we have had a total blast we have been doing motor humming now for almost 19 years and we have been to a lot of different parts of the country but I think that the best part is that it's a shared experience and seeing different parts of the country it's us and now of course our two little dogs but the you know last year for example we did the beaches of the Great Lakes and most people don't realize that they're really gorgeous beaches there and we had a total blast but I think the best part is to see this country to see the people in the country and the truck stops the RV parks the rural places the flyover places and just experience it together I mean we see it together I think it'd be worth worthless if I did it by myself but we see it together we wander around we have meals the other one that sometimes we get in some circumstances where you sitting in a Walmart parking lot and the bus won't start or something you know people recognize you as you travel around you know sometimes I was we were up in New York at a pilot truck stop not a lot of people stopped in pilot but I have I have a pilot rewards card see that's a big deal some parts of the country so their number there all kinds of experiences we have so I get out and you know you fuel and you have your clubs and you act like you're trucker and you kick your tires you know all these 18-wheelers are around and I'm walking back from paying my bill and there was a black gentleman there who was driving a tanker truck and he says you that Judge [Laughter] [Applause] and I said you know a and he said can I get a picture with you and so you have that and then you have other experiences where they don't you know we're you know we had a fuel filter problem and a in a Flying J and Pennsylvanian these two guys fixed it and my wife I asked me about him and I said well they're two great guys they know a lot about bus you know they two guys with a half a set of teeth between them they knew a lot about working on engines it was it's great and they're really there were really really nice guys about somebody I think you were in Gettysburg and someone came up holding a copy of one of your opinions the he was holding up the copy of I think I'm safe parchment paper of the what was that the was in Maritime Commission settled Matt FMC Federal Maritime Commission opinion and he said I said why do you he had run up Little Round Top and you Little Round Top isn't so little when you're out of shape and as you can see that's in that there had a lot to do with anyway that's this the second day again he's burned that was a problem so the he runs up there yes his parchment paper and he says sign this graphically I said he said that's what this is all about I said the Gettysburg was all about the federal Merit oh boy I really missed something it's been it's great the regular people once you get out of this sort of atmosphere where where people think they know what you ought to think has really always gets me people to know what you thought I think that'll work so then that was a mumble the it is wonderful out there people are delightful and the ones who want you can just start your engine and drive away that's great so one other student wants to know what the best piece of advice was you received when you started on the court from your colleagues or I've received some great advice justice white was to me one of the great people you don't hear much about him but he said Clarence it doesn't matter how you got here it matters what you do here all that matters is what you do while you here and the he said we all got here in different ways he also from process reasons he says you got to get a system the then I was early on on the court I was dissenting a little bit I don't know I've got this problem a middle child so that's some kind of determinism stuff so the I the court would vote I was the last vote and everyone voted to affirm I would reverse then the next case everyone voted to reverse and then I was affirmed and I said you know maybe I'm doing this wrong justice white who said at the end of the table next to me said Clarence if that's what you think that's the way you vote and that's what I'm doing so you know I just a lot of every member of the court I talked to had good advice justice marshal justice white justice Brennan said that don't change your mind unless you're persuaded he repeated that when I had lunch with him when I got it to the court and whatever you do don't change your mind unless you're persuaded and the I think that was very very good advice it's really interesting to me then when we have nominations for judges the people you never hear from or people who have done the job the people you hear from more often are people who have never been judges and judges tend to not want to say that it is when you have to sit there and decide cases the last thing you feel that you're in a position to do is tell someone else how to do it if they want advice you can give them counsel but you cannot tell them how to arrive at a conclusion so judges I think tend to have be a bit more reticent about being absolutists about who as a right to be a judge and who doesn't one students wondering if there's a Supreme Court justice in the past that you feel has not maybe gotten the credit or been remembered in the way that they should have been or anybody in the past that you particularly admire from before your time on the court you know I was gonna kid and say McReynolds but I won't I do you gotta forget it you know I really can't say I happen to like Harlan I happen to like to be very very fond to Byron white that's of course during my tenure and there are others but you know I think if you went back and you read the opinions you could find something good about almost all of them and the so I'm not going to I don't want to pick through that one thing we didn't talk about is your time before you went to law school in the seminary and so students are wondering how your time in the summer seminary perhaps is influenced what you're doing today you know I don't know I think my time actually I think got touched on that when I touched on faith seminary was great for me I went in the seminary at 16 and people think of when they're 16 you're like really kind of going off the rails a little bit the seminary was great for me because it really upped the ante as far as academic work we went to school five and a half days a week and it was very very competitive and aggressive and if you learned a lot more discipline but if I were to look into things that had a huge impact on forming me I would have to say the most positive thing and this is not being gratuitous as being just being as accurate as I can't probably the most positive thing was when I met my wife in 1986 because I was just a bit negative and and sort of then we sort of it's better together and then I would have to add formative as far as thinking about the law was when I was at EEOC then the little mid to late-1980s when I ran into kid Mizuki and John Murray needs the doesn't working on that the EEOC taught me how to think clearly and calmly while being beaten that's not so easy and it got you used to that that people forget I spent most of my 30s at EEOC and in in these jobs the and I think the people there taught me that that people can disagree with you and be really really good people I mean they taught me more even than the academic setting but you know I think my years in the seminary were part of the formation that Justice Scalia was talking about and if I could pass something on the students you know the is in the theme that I hope would come through is about this atmosphere that we're in of cynicism and negativism the I think that people can profit from that they can get you worked up they got me worked up they can even organize around it but it's in the end and it may feel initially like a drug it may feel give you this sort of sense that you're empowered but it's also destructive its destructive of you it's destructive of people around you I think to do the hard work to have a civil society it's got to be more positive it's got to be more something you're for not against and at some point if you're gonna have a country you got to have something to be for I think through the I've been in these jobs now I think I started in these jobs in 1981 and the I'm at a point where I'm more idealistic about it that the only reason to do it is for the ideal the only reason to continue doing it to to accept again this is something Justice Scalia and I would talk about you reach particularly when you reach up point when you can just hang up your Spurs you do it for the ideal for the things you believe in I think we've got to focus on that a bit more what do we believe in what do we stand for as a country what do we want the law to stand for not these platitudes that don't mean anything you know everybody's for it everybody being happy so what you know that doesn't really move the dial in you've got to actually do something so I would actually I would really encourage the younger people the older people like me to do that we have an obligation to look for that ideal for which we are fighting for which we are working and then to work toward it in a positive way and I've been saying things like that for now last 30 plus years I know what the other side looks like I know what it feels like but I don't think it is productive I don't think you can have a society where we're constantly cynical or negative in the way that we are you certainly could have a court you mentioned justice Sotomayor or Justice Ginsburg and she's not my enemy Caesar my colleague with whom I distinct for lis disagree so the I think that we have got to particularly the younger people too and as older as adults we've got to set the example but I think the younger people have to set their own pattern well thank you and the I have to say you set an example you know I watched how you have conducted yourself and what you have done in raising your four kids and then going back to writing what is a seminal article and starting your teaching career and it's the same thing if I could take just one minute and ask my former law clerks if I got two or three of them here it would stand up do I have any up mountain that I see any and Oh mark pay a ladder there either and Leonard but they're my adopted clerks they won't stand out but the I'd also like to to another point to make is that it is a real honor I've been a part of the Federalist Society now since meeting with them when I was a te OC in the 1980s and I remember going the Yale Law School when I was at the EEOC going to UVA I think that what the Dean said about this organization is very very important that it allows debate and if we are going to again have a civil society we've got to have civil debates and I would go step further and say that's what law schools used to be where we would actually have disagreements certainly when I was in law school you could argue about anything I think that the students have to reclaim that if we are to have a society we're sort of actually it's you've got a bigger problem than we have so the but so I think it is incumbent upon you to really take it seriously and I would then again my hat is off to you it's off to our judges in this room it's off to the professor's it's off to the leaders to to the to encourage you to continue doing what you're doing it brings you here and to promote it for these young people I think it's very very important and it gets critical so again thank you and thank you for letting me sit here with you we to introverts you you

Channel: The Federalist Society

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Length: 47min 15sec (2835 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 15 2018