...
... ...
... >> I'm going to get my glasses,
if I can find them. Good afternoon. Justice Thomas, who is in the
room downstairs, distinguished guest and colleagues, thank you
for joining the law Library of Congress and the United States Supreme Court today for
the 2018 Supreme Court Fellows Program annual lecture. My name is Jane Sanchez and I
have the honor of serving as the 25th Law
Librarian of Congress. A little bit about the library. The law library serves as the
nation's custodian of a legal and legislative collection of nearly 3 million
items from all countries and legal systems of the world. Our foreign law specialists are
a diverse group of foreign trained attorneys who provide
information and analysis on over 270
jurisdictions in the world. Our skilled law library staff,
both American trained attorneys and law librarians also provide research
assistance and reference services on U.S. federal and
state legal issues. While our collections and our
expertise reach across all points of the
globe, for today's event we've partnered with our next-door
neighbor, who happens to be the highest court in the country. By the way, they are pretty good
neighbors. They're quiet and they keep to themselves pretty
much. This afternoon we are pleased to
be able to collaborate with the Supreme
Court as they celebrate their 45th year
of the Fellows Program. Please note that today's program
is being live-streamed on the Library of Congress YouTube
channel, so all sound, images and remarks will be captured on
video. Please take a moment to silence
your cell phones and refrain from
taking photos on any devices throughout the event. For that
we would thank you. At this time, I would like to
invite to the stage, Jeffrey P. Minear, executive director of
the Supreme Court Fellows Program and counselor to the
Chief Justice of the United States. Thank you. [Applause]
>> JEFFREY MINEAR: Thank you, Jane, for the warm introduction. And thanks to you and the law
Library of Congress for your partnership with the Fellows
Program in sponsoring this afternoon's event. Since its creation in 1832 when
John Marshall was serving as Chief Justice, the law library
has been an important resource and steady friend of the court.
We could not ask for a better neighbor than the largest law
library in the world, and they're pretty quiet too. Let
me say a word about the Supreme Court Fellows Program and my
capacity as its executive director. Each year the Supreme
Court fellows commission made up of judges and other legal
leaders appointed by the Chief Justice selects four talented
professionals to spend a year within the federal judiciary
participating in court administration while engaging in
research and other enrichment opportunities.
This afternoon's event is the public component of two days of
activities in which we celebrate our current Supreme Court fellows and bring together
45 years of Fellows Program alumni. Over the course of today and
tomorrow we'll select next year's fellows from the superb
finalists with us this afternoon.
I understand we have many law students with us in the audience
today, as well as law clerks from several
courts in the federal and state systems. If you have an
interest in how federal courts work I hope you will take time
to learn about the Fellows Program and consider applying in
a future year. I invite you to go to website
fellows .supreme Court.gov. Applications for the 2020 class
will be due in November. But before you set to work on
your applications, we have a great feature this afternoon. We have as our distinguished
guest the 105th justice of the Supreme Court of the United
States, the Honorable Clarence Thomas, who has served on the
court since 1991. Ten years ago Justice Thomas
published his best-selling autobiography,
"my grandfather's son." It shared in his own words his
remarkable American story. I commend it to anyone seeking a
compelling read. We have the book available for purchase here
and at the Supreme Court gift shop. We are fortunate to have with us
also Gregory Maggs to moderate today's conversation. When we planned this program,
Greg was a professor at George Washington University Law
School, but in the past month he's received his judicial
commission as a judge of the United States court of appeals
for the Armed Forces. Judge Maggs was a law clerk to
Justice Thomas in 1991 and before that to justice Anthony
Kennedy. Please join me in welcome
Justice Thomas and Judge Maggs. [Applause] >> GREGORY MAGGS: Do you feel
comfortable? >> CLARENCE THOMAS: No. This is not the most suitable
position for introverts, but you can ask. We like to be in the shadows
someplace. >> GREGORY MAGGS: They're having
a great time... [ Laughter ]
>> CLARENCE THOMAS: It was just fine back there. You don't have
anything to do? [ Laughter ]
Oh, my goodness! Sorry y'all are dragging
yourselves out on this day. >> GREGORY MAGGS: Mr. Minear mentioned the 10th
anniversary of the publication of your book
"my grandfather's son." >> CLARENCE THOMAS: I had
forgotten about that. >> GREGORY MAGGS: I thought I
would start by asking you questions ant the book. >> CLARENCE THOMAS: So you're
Judge Maggs now. >> GREGORY MAGGS: About a week.
>> CLARENCE THOMAS: I think that's great. [ Laughter ]
>> CLARENCE THOMAS: Just changing the subject. [ Laughter ]
>> GREGORY MAGGS: Yeah. Justice, you start out the book
when you're nine years old. Why is that the place to start your
autobiography? >> CLARENCE THOMAS: You know, I
had the manuscript to that and Terry
Teachott, my final editor, just a
phenomenal human being and editor and musician.
And he understood. He dug deep into the manuscript and he said, you know, you have a great
title. I had picked out the title to
"My Grandfather's Son," but he said you have to explain the
title within the first page or two, and he said, I found the
explanation buried in your manuscript. And the line is "I
was nine years old when I met my father q. " And he said, most people
wouldn't think of that. Because ultimately my
grandfather is my father. So I'm my grandfather's son, not
my father's son. So that was my first encounter
that I remember with my father. And so that's why I started it
out there, to explain why I was my
grandfather's son. >> GREGORY MAGGS: Life didn't
start out too easy. You mention in the book you grew
up in Pinpoint, and then in a home that didn't have water,
didn't have electricity. When the house burned down you moved
to Savannah and conditions got worse. I think you write that in the
winter of 1995 you remember being
hungry. >> CLARENCE THOMAS: 1955. I was
doing fine in 1995. [ Laughter ] >> GREGORY MAGGS: 1955, you were
hungry without knowing when you would eat and cold without
knowing when you would be warm. >> CLARENCE THOMAS: That's a
horrible feeling. But, you know, today we kind of
-- I just get worn down. I was with a young woman who
happened to be black in Kansas recently, and she said something
really interesting. She said, I'm really tired of
having to play the role of being black. I just want to go to
school. And I think we -- at some point
we're going to be fatigued with everybody being a victim. When I was a kid, there were
tons of people who were in really bad circumstances. My grandfather would not let us
wallow in that. And as you could tell throughout
this book, he's my hero. He is the single greatest human
being I have ever met. Nine months of education, but he
never saw himself as a victim. He used to say he was a
motherless child. He never knew his father. His mother died when he was
seven or eight years old. Of course, they didn't have birth
certificates then, so he never knew quite how old he was. And then he was raised by his
grandmother, who was a freed slave. Then she dies and then he lives
with an uncle who has 12 or 13 kids and who was a hard man.
And yet he never complained. And he always said -- he would
have this saying "When you want to whine or something... He said, "you know, you have to
play the hand you're dealt." This those days blacks played
big Whigs a lot. You have to play the hand you're dealt. If
you're dealt a bad hand, you still have to play it. When we
whine about things -- if you look at the bust in my office,
my wonderful wife had made for me when I went on the court, his favorite
quote was "old man" can't "is dead, I
helped bury him. I don't know if you saw the
movie" The Help ." That's my family. We were the help. My mother maid $10 a week, $5
more if you had car fare. My mother was a maid. My grandmother had been a maid.
Cousin Bea was a maid. Cousin Doshier was a maid. All
of them were maids. And they were the help. And yet they
never ever complained. And life was hard. I mean, the things
that we consider hard today -- I had some college students ask me
a few years back how would I explain, you know, talk
to them now that the economy had taken a down turn? And I
said... And I'm looking at them and I
said, how many of you don't have cell phones?
Of course, they all had cell phones.
How many of you don't have a computer?
They all had computers. How many of you don't have a
car? I think all but one had a car. I said, you're so far above the
poverty line, and when I was in school, you were at the poverty
line. You're making 90 cents an hour,
you had no money, no shoes. You had like boots and things like
that. And you didn't worry about it. Because virtually
everybody was there. And so when the economy took a
down turn, when you're on the floor, there isn't a whole lot
further you can go. And for them, they're losing
from up here to maybe midway down. So I really had no
connection with them. But my further point...
[ Laughter ] I didn't have a radio. I didn't
have a telephone. And they're complaining. And I
certainly didn't have a car. But it wasn't a problem.
Because you had your dreams. You had your energy. You had
more than the people you grew up around. I grew up around a world of
total illiteracy. That's the beauty. I'm in the Library of
Congress. Total illiteracy. But the thing
they had was hope that the next generation would learn how to
read. They knew how important it was
for me. So my grandfather wouldn't let
me take -- I was a really good athlete too. I don't like to
say that because then people want you to kind of show that
you were a great athlete. And it's kind of too late in the day
now. [ Laughter ] But the -- he would not give us
time off to play sports. We worked on the oil truck or on
the farm. But if it had to do with the library, you could do
it. So at night he would let me go
to the Carnegie Library where I started going in the summer of 1955 for the
noble reason that summer of '55, I was
seven years old and we just moved into this little tenement on the east
side, and on Saturday, they gave you cookies and juice. So I went for the very
high-minded reason of getting cookies and juice.
And when you live in these neighborhoods, cookies and juice
are a real treat. Along the way, they introduce
you to Dr. Seuss. And if I hear "see spot run" one
more time... But it was wonderful. And you got cookies and juice.
But it gave me this image of the library as this place to learn,
and it became a haven. So I walked in here. I said, look where I am! I come from a world of
illiteracy, treasured learning, and I get to be in a place of
learning with all the books and people who are literate. So that's a long way of saying I
was very fortunate to grow up around people who saw beyond their
circumstances and who refused to be limited by
those circumstances or to wallow in
the sort of victim status of their circumstances.
>> GREGORY MAGGS: Tell me more about your grandfather. He was
a very strict man. Was he unfair?
>> CLARENCE THOMAS: Oh, God no, no, no. People ask sometimes about the
nuns and my grandfather. Because in those days you had
corporeal punishment. They said, did you get beatings?
Yeah, but not as many as I deserved.
And my grandfather, whenever he gave you one that he found out
was unfair, that you didn't deserve at that time, he said,
that's what you got away with. And then you couldn't -- what do
you say? Because you knew you got away with stuff.
And every one of us knew... oh, boy, I'm glad he didn't get me
on that one. But, no, my grandfather was a
hard man but not a harsh man. Life was hard. I mean, anybody in this room who
grew up in that environment, that is a hard life. Where you have to figure out how you're going to put a meal on
the table, where you -- there's a very fine
line between the -- between you not being able to eat today and
being able to eat. And the gratitude -- we always
said grace before and after meal.. We're Catholic. And he would always be grateful
-- and this is almost -- this is the old porcelain top table. My
grandfather sat here. I always sat facing him. I don't know
why I got that position, where he would just stare at you. Oh,
my God, help me! And my grandmother sat here and
my brother sat here at a small table. And he would always say, we are
grateful that we have food on our table, clothes on our back
and a roof over our head. And it doesn't get much better than
that. So he was never unfair. He was
very generous. What he would do is -- let's
say, he would make us work to produce something. Then he would say, We are able
to provide for others because we work. So we're able to give
them corn or beans or peas or syrup or
sugarcanes or fruit, because we work. We were able to give them meat
because we raised the hogs. What he taught us we had an
obligation to do well so that we could do good.
Particularly for others. So I could not call that fair. I think my grand mather was
probably one of the -- grandfather was one of the most
compassionate people I've known, because he always told us the
truth. He always told us the truth about life and he -- so I asked my broth
er, my brother, unfortunately, died 18 years ago jogging. He
was a year and four months younger and he and I grew up
with my grandparents. And I asked him when we were in
our 40s, we were very close, and I said,
do you think my -- my grandfather, we went to live with him in '55, said, "I
will never tell you to do as I say. I will always tell you to do as
I do. Watch me." And so I asked my brother years
later, after my grandfather was long
gone, was he ever a hypocrite? And my brother said, absolutely
not. That he lived up to that, to
think about that. Would you set yourself up as the
model and the example to your own children? And you say, do as I do. Watch
me every day. And once -- and we watched it. Because he would never let us
out of his sight. And when he did let you out of
his sight, it was with the nuns. Or I could get away from him to
the library. I loved the library. You know, the -- we take it for
granted now because we have all these computers now and all that
stuff, but just think of yourself coming from a house
with no books and you get to walk into this world and have encyclopedia Americana, encyclopedia Britanica, it had Wagner and all
sorts of fiction, you know, it had magazines Life, Time, all the
newspapers. It was a smorgasbord every time
you walked in. And you had the reference library and it would
introduce you to new things. Then they introduce you to
National Geographic, so you were all over the world. This is all
in Savannah, Georgia. This is a world of segregation, so it gave
you this window to everything else. It gave you a window
beyond Georgia. And the nuns encouraged it, the
librarians encouraged it. So I had an opportunity some
years ago to go back and write and thank
all the librarians, and most recently I ran into a lady in
Savannah, an elderly white lady, because I was among the early
kids who went to the Savannah Public
Library, desegregated, and I was kind of a nuisance there because
I kept showing up. It was like I was "Where's
Waldo?" Where's Clarence? He's got to
be here someplace. And it's time to get away from
my grandfather, and it was just this amazing world. And I ran
into this elderly white lady and she started crying. And she said, I helped you at
the Savannah Public Library. I said, oh, my gosh... it was
really kind of emotional because I remember how scared I was. You have to cross in those days
a lot of lines, but going to the library was worth doing then.
Anyway, that's the library. >> GREGORY MAGGS: Tell me more
about your Catholic education. And your decision to go to
seminary. >> CLARENCE THOMAS: You know, I
look back -- I used to ask Justice
Scalia about that. He thought it was interesting we were so
similar. He would say, Clarence... he said, my parents, my father
was a romance literature professor, my mother was a
teacher, so I know how I got here. How did you get here?
And why are we at the same place? Why do we have the same
set of beliefs? And I think the beauty of having
gone to parochial schools was they
taught us how to -- there was a right way to think about things,
that we have to be honest with ourselves, honest about math,
honest about physics, honest about chemistry, that you
couldn't cheat when you did your Latin translations or German or
French, because I had all those in high school.
And so I was talking recently with someone and he said, it was
your formation, that there was always a right way to do things.
There was an honest way to do things. And the progression is, I became Catholic when I went to the
second grade in 1955, sister Rosa, a wonderful
person. At any rate, I became an altar
boy and the progression is you become an
altar boy and if you progress as an
altar boy you consider whether or not you have a vocation. In those days you went to a
minor seminary. In 1964 I decided I thought I
had a vocation, so I was 15 and then following year when I was
16 I went to seminary. The difficulty was, again,
things hadn't been desegregated yelt. So you were, again, drossing
racial barriers, -- crossing racial barriers, so you had that
challenge. Even that was not nearly as difficult as going to
school in New England. No one -- there were a few
jerks. We all have those. But beyond that, the school was
excellent. The people were fair to me. It was very, very
challenging academically. And also I got to -- I like to
say I finished in the top ten of my high school class, but
because there were only nine of us...
[ Laughter ] You have to take these things
when you get them. That would be the last time I
would be able to say that. >> GREGORY MAGGS: What about
your decision to leave seminary? >> CLARENCE THOMAS: That was
1968. Any of us who were around in
1968, it was 1968. The wheels were coming off the
wagons in a lot of ways. And the little Catholic kid from
the rather insular world of Savannah suddenly was reading and it was
a long, hot -- Dr. King was assassinated and we became quite race conscious, which
problematic sides and has good sides. And like a lot of us, went from
being nice Catholic kid to the angry black kid. And that was
1968. So then I returned home and was
greeted with my grandfather, who told me
that if I'm going to do that, then I
need to find another place to live. So he kicked me out of
the house and I was on my own. I was 19 years old. May 1968. >> GREGORY MAGGS: But you went
to Holy Cross? >> CLARENCE THOMAS: I know
there's all this myth about how -- people love to come up with
narratives and myths. They should read or something. At any rate, my chemistry
teacher asked the high school classmate of
mine to send me an application. I had ranked very high in my
class in seminary, first year of college, and I just simply
filled it out and I transferred to Holy Cross. I was accepted
almost immediately and transferred to Holy Cross in
1968. Pi wasn't going to go because I was tired of being the
only black kid or one or two or three. I was going to go to Savannah
State, but then when my grandfather
disinvited me from living in his house, I thought it might not be
a good idea to hang around. So I just... I hadn't thought
about any other schools. So I had been accepted to Holy
Cross, so got on the train and went to Holy Cross.
You can see the planning I did. I say to people, my whole life
has been providential because I certainly didn't know what was
going on. >> GREGORY MAGGS: In your book,
Justice, you talk about being a radical
at Holy Cross, about being angry. Did you feel you were treated
unfairly? >> CLARENCE THOMAS: At Holy
Cross? No, no, I was just mad at the world. It was 1968. I
was angry. I really didn't need a logical reason to be angry. I
was angry about things that happened in the past. I was
angry about things that were going to happen in future. If you said "good morning" to me
I was angry. If you didn't say "good morning," I was angry.
And people sort of exploited that. And, you know, I was -- I
remember going to Harvard Square in April
of 19 -- April 15, 1970, and we were
pretty upset. You know, I couldn't explain to
myself why I just did that. All night we were rioting. And I got back home, got back to
Holy Cross and that's when I made a promise to God that I
would never -- that if he took anger out of my heart, I would
never do that again. I would never let anger control my life. That was the morning of April
16, 1970. And I've attempted to live up to
that. >> GREGORY MAGGS: What made you
choose law? >> CLARENCE THOMAS: It's kind of
the far scump effect. How do I know? I was going to to be a
priest. When you have a vocation, you
think the belief of God is calling you. That's the only dream I've ever
had was to be a priest. I don't think it ever quite leaves you.
When I went off to Holy Cross, I was in a little bit of a tailspin.
I was looking for the next call, what am I called to do? So I
decided that God would call me to go to Savannah and to help
out. And one way to do that was to be in law. And so I went to law school to
return to Savannah. If you noticed, I never really worked
at a law firm. I worked at a small firm in
Savannah, Georgia, in the summer between second and third year of
law school because I wanted to return to Savannah. For reasons that I'm not going
to get into, that job did not live up
to my expectations. Now I've got a wife -- today is
my son's 45th birthday, so he was a little kid. And I had a wife and child and
student loans. And now I need a job, because I'm not going back
to the situation that I don't think is right in Savannah. And I couldn't get a job in
Savannah, Georgia. That's literally it. I couldn't get a
job in Atlanta, Georgia. I couldn't get a job in
Washington, D.C. I couldn't get a job in New York. And I
couldn't get a job in LA. I struck out every place I could. So I wound up in Jefferson City,
Missouri. And because they didn't give me
a job in Atlanta is the reason I wound up on the court. So it's
their fault. [ Laughter ]
Otherwise I would be comfortably a tax lawyer or something.
>> GREGORY MAGGS: Tell me about your years at Yale.
>> CLARENCE THOMAS: What about it?
>> GREGORY MAGGS: Do you remember them?
[ Laughter ] >> CLARENCE THOMAS: You know, I
think that had -- that was ages. >> GREGORY MAGGS: No, no, no...
[ Laughter ] >> GREGORY MAGGS: That was a
slight on Yale. >> CLARENCE THOMAS: You can see
I've always enjoyed my law clerks,
and we enjoyed teaching together. We have had -- we've been
teaching together six or seven years at GW Law School and had a
total blast. It's a good thing they don't
really pay us for it. You're not going to get paid now
because you're going to be adjunct like the rest of us. You know, Yale was the perfect
school for me. I've had my complaints for
reasons after Yale, but Yale showed me
where I needed to be. If I had -- if I went back to
Yale I would go differently today. I wouldn't go with all
these burdens of anger and bitterness and
self-restrictions and constraint. I would spend a lot of time in
the sterling Library, which I loved being in. I would spend a
lot of time doing the things that I like. I would be like that young kid
at KU. I just want to go to school. I just want to be a
kid. I like chamber music. I'd go to that.
I like debates. I like recitals. You know, I'm reading a book now
on the Plantagents. Keagan was at Yale. I should
have gone to those lectures, whether it's Greek history or
myth or wars. The Peloponnesian wars or
something. I loved debates. I loved
philosophy. And it was all there. I could go to Off Broadway
plays. I didn't go to anything because I was mad at the world.
I was self-restricted in this place that offered all these
opportunities. The law school was good for me
because it showed me how much work I needed to do, to do what
I wanted to do. How much I needed to learn and a
question I asked myself when I left was: Are you willing to do
the work? Are you willing to dedicate
yourself to learning all you need? And so I would have to say in retrospect, it was small enough,
it was academically challenging, it was interesting, the professors were
fair to me. It wasn't the best choice as far
as being able to distinguish yourself, because of the grading
system. But I can't say -- I can't look
back and offer any complaints. I know in the past I've not said
pleasant things, but that would have to do with some other
reactions. >> GREGORY MAGGS: Let's move
forward to confirmation process. A third of your book has to do
with confirmation process. That's been 27 years or so. How was your view of being
confirmed and the politics involved? How is all that --
have you changed a bit? >> CLARENCE THOMAS: You know, I
think it's sort of like surgery, the
only minor surgery is on the other guy. I don't think the process is
what it ought to be. I think that these are serious jobs and
I think they should be serious. I don't think they should become
spectacle. This is not the Roman coliseum. We're not glad
yaiters. I think we're going to lose some of our best people who
choose not to go through the ordeal. They don't want to have
to fight the lion in order to be a judge or
to be in government. And I think it's our own fault
for allowing this to happen. I was confirmed five times in
ten years. And it got increasingly worse. And I think that we are going to
at some point have the leadership we deserve. Because we allow the selection
process to get out of our control and to have very little to do with selecting
the kind of people we need. Think about it. You went through confirmation. And yours wasn't particularly
controversial, but it was an ordeal. And what if it was embittered?
And I think a lot of people have second thoughts. I can't tell
you how many people I know who in the middle of it
said "what was I thinking?" I think that's unfortunate. I
think the country is going to lose something because of that. So, you know, I don't have
bitter feelings or anything like that. I don't have strong
reactions. But I think I'm sober in my
judgment of it and I think a lot of the difficulties are
irrelevant to the jobs. Think about it. How many people, for example,
who have done the job of judging, who
actually talk about judges, it's usually
the people doing the most talking
have never judged a single case. I find it absolutely
fascinating. A lot of the commentary has nothing to do
with the job itself. I found when I got to the D.C.
Circuit, I found that job absolutely fabulous. The people
there were fabulous. And to the Supreme Court, after going through all those difficulties,
the members of the court were just
wonderful people. To a person, it was a fabulous
place to work. You were there. It was a lot of work. It was very difficult first
term, but in retrospect it was an exciting time, just the ideas
and learning, and everybody there made it as decent a place
as it could possibly be. So the Court itself is quite
different from the ordeal. It's almost the opposite of the
or deal it took to get there. >> GREGORY MAGGS: What are the
best and worst things about being a Supreme Court justice?
>> CLARENCE THOMAS: The best I think would have to be interacting
with my kids as they clerk to going
through life, watching you all. It's just -- that's the best
part. I would have to say, too, my
wife is now a former law clerk. She is emeritus. We gave her
honorary law clerk degree. But watching her... my wife was
34 years old when I got to the court. Watching her enjoy the clerks
and the kids, it is such a joy. I remember when Nicholas was
born. Now what is he doing? >> GREGORY MAGGS: Graduate
school. >> CLARENCE THOMAS: Yeah. So, watching all of that, it's
just fantastic. And then when Janice got
married, you know, it's just -- so that's the best part. The worst part is the loss of
anonymity. I don't like the public part.
But that's a part of the deal. I'm not going to complain about
it, but I just -- those of you who
are introverts, you know what I'm talking about. We prefer -- it's sort of like I
said to my clerks who were introverts. Introverts of the world unite.
And then they said, but do we have to go to meetings? [ Laughter ] So I read Susan Cane's book
"quiet," which I think is the best book. For those of us who are
introverts, that's the hard part, the public part. You know what, I could add to
that. It's not a complaint. All of this is a part of the
deal. I have no complaints. I don't like the myth-making
around the Court and who we are. There's a real decided
difference between what is said about what
goes on in judging and the Court and
what actually happens. There's the real world and
there's the myth of that world. We don't have the time, the
energy or the ink or the bits or bites or
whatever they call that to change to engage in
that narrative battle. We have work to do. We have to write
opinions. I've been around a lot of
judges, whether you agree with them or not, they actually put
the work in. It's a wonderful world to work
in. Where you actually have to write
out your opinions and think things through and have
arguments and go through all the statutes and go through all
the constitutional provisions and go through all the rules of statutory
interpretation or construction. All the interpretive cannons. It's fascinating.
So I like that world. But then the world that people talk about
that you don't agree on something... oh, you hate old
people! What!?
Or you want to execute people. I haven't met a judge who wants
to execute anybody. I haven't met that judge yet. In fact, every judge I have met,
going through these cases, look at what it does to your hair.
So you start out, your hair is black, you have lots of it, and then
all of a sudden you're follicle-ly
impaired. And it's gray. Oh, my God, another execution! Every one of us is like, did I
get it right? Did I make a mistake? And yet you have the people who
create the myth about it. , who think that somehow you're
callously doing these things. Those are people who never
stayed up in the middle of the night and voted for one of these
things. So I like being around judges.
I like the work. I like the world that I'm a part
of. I think the world -- those who
talk about it are not doing the world
justice or the rest of the fellow citizens justice in
talking about an important part of their government.
>> GREGORY MAGGS: Talking about the work, I notice the Supreme
Court statistics that for the last two years you have written
about twice as many opinions as any of the other justices.
>> CLARENCE THOMAS: That's because I really don't talk, so
I get to write a lot. [ Laughter ]
>> GREGORY MAGGS: Why so many opinions?
>> CLARENCE THOMAS: Who knows? Justice Scalia said I was
solisistic. I said, I have no idea what that
means, but I like the ring of it. So I think that means I like my
own opinions. He said once, Clarence, you don't care for
other people's opinions, do you? No, I do care, but I prefer my
own. I don't know. I think it is really important
that when you vote for these things
that you explain why, and that if it
doesn't make sense -- my granddaddy -- I'm not going to
use the words he used exactly, but he would say... "Boy, if it
don't make no sense, it don't make no sense."
He would spice it up a little bit.
And, you know, things have to make sense to me. When you come from the lower
levels of society, when you -- poverty, things have to make
sense. My granddaddy, either you fed
the hogs or you didn't feed the hogs. You greased the tractor
or didn't grease the tractor. You either planted the corn or
you didn't plant the corn. It was binary. It was clear. And I think when we do these
cases, we owe it to our fellow citizens to
explain in plain language what we are doing. And sometimes when you see me
writing, it's because what the Court is
doing, the premise, I think, disagree with, and I think it's
wrong. And if you go back and you look at the Court of Appeals judges, I think
it is a little bit glib -- I'm not going
to say disrespectful -- for us to -- when there are differences of opinions in
the Courts of Appeals and District Courts, for us not to explain why we
hold a different opinion from them or
not to fully explore the opinions below, and just glibly
disagree. And I think we owe them that
respect. So I worked through everything.
And I probably put a lot of pressure on my law clerks. I
wouldn't clerk for me. That is way too much work. And
I tell them that before they're done. Are you sure you want to
do this? Why are you doing this? You know there's a 13th
amendment. [ Laughter ]
>> GREGORY MAGGS: What's changed in your judging over the 27
years? >> CLARENCE THOMAS: That is
really a good question. Judge. You know, it's sort of like if
you climb a mountain, when you're at 1,000 feet, you see
something. You still look at the same scenery, but you have a
different view from when you're at 10,000 feet or 5,000
5,000 feet. You see more. I've been doing this so long
that you see more. You understand more. The reason I was reading this
book on the Plantaginents was because of
English common law, starred out people do a lot of talking about stare decisis,
so I decided to teach a course to understand it in depth. But to understand stare decisis,
you have to understand English common law. To understand English common
law, you have to understand where England came from, the Norman conquest, the
Vikings, the Romans. Then to understand that you have to
trace those histories. So anyway, I've done that and
now I'm fascinated by the Platginents
and what they've done developing England. What were they doing?
Why did the king pull all this together?
But to understand you've got to pull all the history together.
But look how many years that takes.
That's what I learned at Yale. This wasn't a sprint. It was a
marathon. It was a life-long endeavor. It's what you and I
do when we teach constitutional law together. Look at the cases
we've read. Look at how in-depth we've read
those cases. How many people care about Crop v. Dulles. You
and I do. We care about it. Vlas v. Cohen. Decided but they
don't read it. You and I do. We have to. Why?
Because we're messing with other people's constitution. You and
I have to do it, and you know why. We have to go back and
read the briefs. Because we're tinkering with other people's
constitution. We don't have any unlimited license to do that. And we certainly don't have a
right to be reckless with it. So over the years what you learn
is it's like you've peeled -- you've gone higher or another metaphor,
you're peeling the onion and you understand, you see more. Not because you're smarter or
because people love to set themselves up
as philosopher, kings or something. No. It's because
you've been doing it longer. This is what I do.
I don't have hobbies. Well, except for rooting against
Alabama. [ Laughter ] You knew it was coming, didn't
you? Oh, my gosh, they stole another
national championship! You know, I...
I don't... This is what I do. I do law. And it consumes you. And virtually everything I do is
in preparation of doing this job. I think I owe this.
Remember, it's about your calling. And if you're called to do it,
you're called to do it a certain way. If you go back and look at
Justice Scalia, look what he died doing. People forget, he had finished
-- he thought it was our job to fly
the flag, to go different places and to talk to people about what
we do. He was more outgoing than I am. But he would tell me, Clarence,
you got to fly the flag. You have to go out there. Then the other thing, when he
did his work, everything mattered to him. Every
sentence. Every word. Every comma. Every idea. It all
mattered. And it mattered. That's one of the reasons we
trusted each other. Because we both knew it mattered. Getting it right was important
to both of us. Why would we do it otherwise?
Why would we be doing this? This is wrong. How would you
look your fellow citizens in the eye if you didn't get it right?
If I looked at you and told you, oh, I don't care. I kind of...
you know, I go and watch cartoons and then, you know, I
kind of flip coins for your constitution. Or I just kind of
do whatever I want to do. I would never do that. Ever.
Because that's wrong. And he believed the same thing.
We took an oath to do it a certain way. So I think I have to inform
myself in order to make decisions about your
constitution. And you feel the exact same way.
And you just became a judge. And you know you feel exactly
the same way. That you have a special
obligation or you wouldn't have been 28 years
as a Reservist in the military. Or the best teacher at GW Law
School for a quarter of a century.
>> GREGORY MAGGS: Talk about your teaching, Justice.
[ Laughter ] >> CLARENCE THOMAS: I knew you'd
change the subject. >> GREGORY MAGGS: You've taught
at Georgia and George Mason, GW.
>> CLARENCE THOMAS: I love it. >> GREGORY MAGGS: What is your
goal in teaching? >> CLARENCE THOMAS: You know, I
think that we -- I think that people
make learning -- well, let me back up. Did you see the wizard
of Oz? Who was the wizard? >> GREGORY MAGGS: Who was the
wizard? >> CLARENCE THOMAS: This little
guy. >> GREGORY MAGGS: The little
guy, I could have said that. >> CLARENCE THOMAS: I think what
we do sometimes is we make everything mysterious.
>> GREGORY MAGGS: Don't look behind the curtain.
>> CLARENCE THOMAS: Yeah, that's what we do in our class. It's
not mysterious. There was a young man in our
constitutional law class at the end, he said, I'll never look at
law the same again. I don't know what his meanings were. I
don't care what his ideology is. What we were trying to get him
to do is de-mystify it. It's not that complicated.
Why do we make it complicated? Why do we make it inaccessible. ? I had a buddy who was a quadriplegic, back in the '70s
before you have the flush and curb
cuts. Every time we got a curb, it was
a great wall of China. If we weren't there to lift him,
it was inaccessible to him. To some extent that's what we do to
law. We start talking about negative pregnants and use double
entendres and throw in a little Latin or a little of this. Why
don't we talk in English? That farmer in rural Alabama has
a right to know what his constitution says. And so what
I do is -- one of the things I say -- and I said it even when you were clerking, is that
genius is not putting a $20 ten-cent idea in a
$20 sentence. Genius is putting a $20 idea in
a ten-cent sentence. It is to make it accessible as
possible to average people. So when I used to go back home,
think about it, I came from a world of
illiteracy, near illiteracy. And when you went back home, you
could not talk down to people. That's what they would say to
you. They wouldn't use the word
"condescend." That wasn't in their vocabulary. You're
talking down to me, you're putting me down. But you have to explain things
to them without treating them like they're lesser human
beings. So it's what we used to say in
the vernacular back in the '60s, you have to break it down.
In other words, you have to speak without losing meaning,
without losing content, you have to explain it in a language that
they understood. And I think one of the things
that we try to do in the opinions is to explain things to
people. I think we owe it to people.
In order to do that, we have to know it, as we do in the
classes. Look at the eyes on the students when we're done. When they figure out that they
know more about Lockner now than they
did before, simply because we read the briefs and articles
about it, et cetera, and we know the story behind it.
And all of a sudden they can claim it. They understand it.
It makes sense. If you look -- when I wrote
separately in the McDonald opinion, what I was trying to do is, after all this
talk of substantive due process, just simply explain to people,
we don't know where it -- where does it come from? Where does
it come from? It's not in the constitution.
So you go back and you say, here is what is there.
You don't have to agree. But the immunity clause is actually
there. Here is what they actually
debated. You can disagree with that. But you can see the coherence. You can see -- you can go to
Dred Scott and you can see -- you
know, like Tawney says, can't be citizen,
remedied in the 14th amendment. And you can't deny citizenship. It makes sense once you go
through the history. That's what I tried to do in the
opinions. It's not so much to give you some legal theory but
to give you the progress of this provision.
And then to show you where it's connected to some of the other
concerns they had about blacks in the south being able to
defend themselves. >> GREGORY MAGGS: Justice, I
wish we could stay all afternoon.
>> CLARENCE THOMAS: Well, they're leaving, but you and I
can stay. [ Laughter ]
>> GREGORY MAGGS: I've gotten the signal that time is up.
Thank you for your remarks. >> CLARENCE THOMAS: Thank you
all for spending this afternoon with us. I'm sorry to take so much of
your time. And maybe we didn't cover everything that you
probably wanted us to, but we're going to be talking later on
about the dormant commerce clause for those that are interested interested.
Thank you all very, very much. [Applause]
