Justice Clarence Thomas: Personal reflections on the Court, his jurisprudence, and his education.

hi I have bill kristol welcome to conversations I'm very pleased to be joined today by Justice Clarence Thomas Supreme Court if it was finished a quarter century on the Supreme Court it's hard to believe well yeah I mean I knew you before then yeah not where I was young as we once were no isn't that interesting and it's I met you what 30 years ago 31 right in the Reagan administration this will be your first term without your good friend and wonderful colleague Nino Scalia you spoke so beautifully about him it and you eulogized him at his funeral and then later on you made some remarks that when you get the Hillsdale commencement address about Justice Scalia you want to say a word about him I mean well it is I mean it's and one of the hard parts of being on the court is watching what happens to your colleagues as time goes by and you know I've always said that the hard part was watching your colleagues get older and pass away and of course then his sudden death and yet no one could have anticipated which is pretty shocking so I mean it's a big loss in a lot of ways I mean he's uh he was a friend he's somebody I trusted someone I felt instinctively close to and work has worked with for almost a quarter of a century so and you agreed on a lot of issues they're not all issues and constitutional I guess but though coming from very different backgrounds right yeah yeah you know it's really interesting I it's um I had never had not met him until I got to the court there I had met Maureen briefly but not him and I had read some of his work he hadn't been on the court that long and thought that his approach was probably the most true to the original understanding of the Constitution particularly in cases like in the Olson case separate you know and in like even Mastretta some of those but in any rate the I thought that he I could agree with him but I didn't know him and they had sort of uh he had had this reputation of being somewhat caustic at least that's the way he was portrayed well pleasantly you know and I get to the court pleasantly surprised he's really a fun man to be around never saw that side man he might disagree with you but that was nothing and we never had major disagreements we there was a respect even when we didn't agree on things it was done in such a fun way and he would dissent I think in one of his dissent in his last term he referred to one of my opinions involving the Fourth Amendment where I said that you know it was anonymous tip about a drunk driver it turned out to be guys hauling drugs and he dissented I thought it didn't violate the first of the Fourth Amendment search and seizure reasons unreasonable searches and seizures rule and then he thought it did so he dissented in this and he said that my opinion was a a a cot and liberty destroying cocktail ha and I just thought that was a and I thought it was hilarious but I Andy's I saw understood this point but he's just he would say things like that and people would portray that as caustic he he thought it was really good use of language out was a lot of fun but I truly will miss him yeah he was a wonderful friend and somebody I trusted implicitly I want to ask you about constitutionalism and originalism and the whole philosophy of law that um have followed in advance so much I think in your a quarter century on the court but you know you mentioned the Morrison V Olson I think I was about the case that where he was as I recall Justice Scalia dissent it alone right and then was vindicated I think kept one thinks fifteen years later or something like that and you know I it was the Independent Counsel round that he thought violated separation of powers and the and it turns out you know so years ago I'm sitting at EEOC and the guys who got me very interested I was just interested in government and why this form of government and what were the protection so I hired the speech writers Kim asougi and John Marine Strauss Ian's right and that began began this really wonderful intellectual journey but along the way we look at things like some of the court's opinions including the separation of powers it was Morrison versus Olson and I remember giving a speech at Cato when it was just a thin a small building on Capitol Hill saying that the Chief Justice had disappointed I see if justice rehnquist at disappointed I never met the man didn't think I would ever meet him did he remember this speech later when you do know it probably did but he never he was good enough not head but Justice Scalia's opinion pointing out that this jeopardized Liberty individual liberties you had these structural protections in the Constitution separation of power is of course enumerated powers federalism that the checks and balances built in there to protect individual liberty that when you start violating those you jeopardize Liberty and that was consistent with what I was you know since if you follow Magna Carta and on up to our founding so I said well that's I don't know him but that's pretty much my view well I was course when I went through my confirmation that was raised as I could you dare don't you think we should be able to do this that and the other thing you know I think it was a Senator Kennedy and then the see years later some years later when the shoes on the other foot that people suddenly see that principle that this could be of concern no but I that was probably the first opinion of Justice Scalia's that I looked at with any sort of exactness and certainly expressed my agreement with him so that is on that basis that I thought he would be someone I agreed with when I got to the court but that's that's a fairly thin read the one thing I was interested in by that so I was asked to only talking to a friend who teaches at a law school saying we're going to have this conversation and he said one thing I'd like to ask Justice Thomas and this is sort of inside baseball but I think people interested in it is you have to pick your fights on the court obviously it's you say what you believe and your terp with the Constitution or the laws statutes but also you make a answers with other justices you sometimes don't say maybe everything you would say in order to have five votes and and he said he'd be curious what you thought the relative weight of a strong forceful dissent even if there's only one of you or two of you is as opposed to pulling some punches let's say to be part to get a few other justices on board or to be part of a majority and I thought of Justice Scalia's lonely dissent in that case and he was sometimes criticized for being you know too tough minded in a sense you know dissenting instead of looking to build alliances what I mean how does that work and what do you how do you think about that or do you think what about it or in toward you you know how does it curious about that you know I I think that's an individual thing but I think that this is not a political body on the they're not you can't trade off you give me this bridge and I give you that you know I don't do vote trading I think that's that's from my perspective I'm not speaking for other people I don't think that's consistent with the oath I tie on the I think there are matters of principle that you can't concede I think there are first principles there are when you concede the premise you lose the argument I don't think you have to really be careful with that so if you look at for example when I got to the court I wrote some dormant Commerce Clause opinions I went along with them because I hadn't thought it through but over time you think these things through and I think once you think them through you are obligated to explain why this approach versus another approach so you'll see like an encampment I took my leave of the dormant Commerce Clause that's simply because it seems to make sense to me you see it also in the area of commercial speech where an have an axe to grind when it came to commercial speech but as you think it through I think of the Central Hudson test which was a four factor test that I didn't quite understand and it didn't do any real work it would be like being in your car stuck in a mud mud and your judge is constantly pressing the accelerator well that's not doing any work you're not going anyplace you're literally spinning your wheels and I just thought that we shouldn't have tests or things Justice Scalia agree with the lemon tests and the Establishment Clause area that if it's not doing any work and it's just then looks like it's masquerading as a test that's doing work you need to be really careful with that sort of thing and you can't go along with that or if you think either if it's been around for a long time right I think you would you've been thought to be a justice who's more willing to challenge sort of established opinions in constitutional law by going back to the original understanding of the Constitution and think about it you know people say that but then I mean how do you explain a deviation from Plessy versus Ferguson I mean it was a seventy-year-old precedent how do you explain with a lonely to Santa - justice Harlan did exactly with it who didn't go along on how do you explain for example Brandeis is overruling a Swift V Tyson in Erie V Tompkins that was a 96 year old precedent nobody asked sedan overruling and so the court changes I think what happens and it's for this reason I did I taught at the University of Georgia on earlier this month on story decisis took quite a bit of time the end of point was to just go through all the cases and they go through the development of the whole notion under English common law and through our own jurisprudence and I think what has happened and maybe Goldberg was right in his assessment of stare decisis where people get what they want in the law and then they want to they say if you want to review that you apply Starr decisis rigidly for what I would like to do the advances I'd like to personally make in the law we will have sort of a loose form story decisis that's the point Goldberg makes he needs his I'm just recasting what he said the approach it wasn't quite that but it was similar to that and you know I think we are obligated even if we follow cases to explain to people not to just sort of wrote Li cite cases and as though people are tommy-toms or something like that you know or that this is you know you just sort of this ritualistic incantation of old cases this is this is handed down from God this is from the burning bush that this is the Decalogue of law and that you are to accept that it's revealed wisdom it's not it's an opinion and I think you should even if you follow it you should have people justify it and you should explain and you should understand it if you want if you're going going to affect people's lives you should understand exactly what you're doing even if you have to go along so again the you know one of the cases where I did that involved there was a Macdonald case involving privileges or immunities clause in the Fourteenth Amendment well those words are in the Fourteenth Amendment rly critical to the application of the Fourteenth Amendment why have it it addresses this problem that you had with Dred Scott and so the inner certainties it's personally it's something that affected my life so what you're saying is this is their substantive due process is not there shouldn't we at least explain to people why we we are talking about something we were using a phrase something that is not in the Constitution substantive due process to sow affect our lives and then here's something that's in the Constitution privileges or immunities and we're not using it or we have bled the the heart of it Atta you see what I'm saying absolutely we've depleted of its meaning in in the in slaughterhouse cases i mean i'm hold enough to remember when you and as a before you were on the court really and then justice scalia and a few others were originalist I'm not even sure when the term kind of came about but you were criticizing the whole trend of letting constitutional law substitute for the actual Constitution and go back to the real meaning of the Constitution and then you there were differences among the original list but I mean in a way it's an amazing success story over thirty years I would say of something that was just at the very fringes of the law schools and of the court becoming a central strain and modern jurisprudence and a you know a lot of people a lot of young people your clerks and students and people who admire you and Justice Scalia and others elaborating on many many and debating different aspects of ritualism but I'm curious how do you think it stands now I mean are you do you feel like this is I mean there is originalism ascendant is it in retreat a little bit I mean have you succeeded intellectually do you think and convincing a lot of people and especially younger people coming off that this is the way right wait for judges and justices to interpret the Constitution you know I don't know I I guess I don't spend a lot of time thinking about that you know Justice Scalia it's what a good man he a lot of time would think that you know there were times not what shouldn't say a lot but there were times when he questioned whether or not he was wasting his time I think we all go through that particularly in this city and you know I remember saying them I said you know Nino you people now actually even if they're pretending they have to go through the motions of reading the text of looking at the intent of either drafters of a statute or the framers of the Constitution people who actually wrote it they have to go back and look at what they thought and at least tried to come up with some rationale of why they would have done this or or done that so in that sense just sort of in sort of the mo that you use in interpreting documents or interpreting statutory or constitutional provisions you have to it's the same it's the it's the the approach isn't it effective now there are lots of arguments about what's exactly the right approach and I understand that but I don't usually spend a lot of my time on that I'm just trying to get the right answer on you know when I teach but with young I just loved doing that it's a lot of work it's a busman's holiday but it's an important holiday and students are curious they really want to be told the truth and I think they tend to be a little bit skeptical and and in doing that if skeptic is sysm can be healthy skepticism it can be unhealthy skepticism and what I'm trying to do when I want to work with emesis tell them not the answer but just simply say wouldn't you want to know more about this case when you want to know more that you're when you want to feel confident that you've done a lot of work to make sure you're right it's someone if you're a doctor and someone comes in with a complicated health problem I think a doctor they say get a second opinion let's run a couple of tests to make sure let's do this let's do that the I think this is the answer but we should do some more tests to make sure well why don't we do that with lots and that's basically the approach that that we take with originalism right you know that I don't know what the answer is I don't want to make up a theory and then it's all about me and affecting your law I wanted to go back and make sure this actually is what the framers or the common law or the the legislature said the law was so and then you take in the count precedent but you want to make sure the precedent is right yeah so but the do you think we've had an effect you know I don't really get caught up in that warrant I think I think you have I've just just was curious I'm struck you know I ordered I think I didn't think it'd take a constitutional law course my first or second year of college so this is the very early 70s and I didn't know anything about it and I thought okay this will be a real interpretation of the Constitution and what they meant and of course the development I was really a goddess I sort of shocked that it was just people's opinions based on the times and and with the politics of the different justices and various some theories some law professors to develop some of which were intelligent and some of which I agreed with that matter but it didn't seem to have much to do the actual Constitution I do think in that respect accommodation of your work and Justice Scalia's and others and some of the political scientists who rediscovered I'd say the political philosophers the the kind of the importance of constitutionalism I do feel like that's a big difference yeah they can't ignore I mean in public life to political life that talking about the Constitution is so much more central for at least some political figures than it was I don't know 30 40 years ago it seems to me you every day you must feel that I think that you I mean you know I don't know you went to Yale Law School did you study the constitutional law Constitution we study constitutional law and there's a difference and that's probably you know you mentioned that you know I sort of like had my questions about that is precisely because of that I mean it's I think it is I'm probably the way I am because I went to Yale Law School and that was unsatisfying I write when I study constitutional law they were good people they were smart people if not brilliant people but the we didn't study the Constitution we in fact if you go back you see the Constitution was in the back of the the case book is that right on the I think it was Gunther's case but so it was in the rear of the case but and we rarely referred to that and it would seem to me that you would do it the other way it's like you know Hillsdale has this constitution reader I mean the I would and that's what I would start with today if I were teaching because you would want to start with the founding documents perhaps you know go through the drafting even if you had them read something that was not necessarily law like ratification or something one of those books so people can actually go through it and feel it or even watch I mean even watch like the the John Adams odd series I hate even you don't read the book at least watch and get a sense of what what are they going through and sort of founding a country what are some of the problems as a result of that what were the risk of doing that what were they concerned about you know I mean with the Confederation and things like that in the so you know I didn't we didn't do it when I was in law school is that's that's one of the reasons I think we ought to do it and then I'm not sure about these theories you know like the outside of theories it got me in Moscow they would talk about like applying the Bill of Rights to States well because of my honest terms the Bill of Rights didn't apply to States applied to national government so you say through the Fourteenth Amendment so you come up with with absorption Theory you know you you got a partial incorporation selective incorporation you got all these different theories total incorporation and I said what the heck of these these are just theories it's not there the the people who drafted the amendments didn't say it and and so I'm just interested in that and so you were supposed to accept that and then the basis for which one's to absorb you know like not jury right but maybe you know the First Amendment right but then why the Establishment Clause and you never got like satisfactory explanation so it's you're trying to find answers to those sorts of things and I think the analogy I use is this with might with my kids imagine that every case is a that the law is at a very long train I mean those long trains that blocked us at railroad crossings when we're in a hurry and the the let's say there are hundreds of cars like Supreme Court cases in every new case is adding one more car to a very long train now I think before you do that you have an obligation to take your time walk through all the cars see what's up in what's in the engine of the Train see who's driving it maybe an orangutan for all we know it may be going over a cliff for all we know it may be running headlong into a station for all we know then why are we adding another car so I think before we are obligated to at least know to what train and why we are dropped we are adding a car and where is that train heading before we add another car so just think of it that way and so people say you don't believe in story decisis or this but I said you're just going through the Train to make sure it's headed in the right direction and there's a basis for it in the Constitution in the in the FRA founding documents in our history in our tradition and not something that's made up in the mind of a law professor or a very crafty lawyer and when I talk to young people as you do and a lot of ones especially who might be more on my side of the protocol spectrum were sort of depressed these days and the last term of the court and what's the constitutional moment seems to have passed and are we ever going to get back to real constitutionalism limited government and good understanding the separation of powers and so forth in our country and I don't know I'm not sure I do a very good job of reassuring them I do usually cite the dissents that then get vindicated years or decades later whether it's justice Harlan or Justice Scalia or you but I don't know what what do you say and what is your I mean obviously you're doing your job as a justice and so you're not worrying too much I said you're wearing West by getting it right but what does you are you are you encouraged or and how do you encourage young people I mean what is your sort of general view of the current state of constitutional self-government in America I mean not so much the court but the broader question you know you've thought a lot about this you know I think a lot of us you know I I don't know I mean I don't know I hang my I'm more concerned about other things but the Academy the well that's the culture um well the state of Education but that's okay I'll talk about that but a baby nurse do you feel sometimes they were swimming awfully upstream here against the awfully big institutions and forces and I think we are required to swim upstream no matter what it is I think it's a matter of principle no matter my grandfather would was that sort of person that no matter what others were doing or how bad it looked we had things we were supposed to do and I think we are required to do what is right despite how bad things are like I don't know whether or not I think it was when I was a kid I'm Catholic and one of the great sins was to despair and I think that it's hard to get up in the morning as a despairing person yes there have to be hopeful and you know I just look around us I I was riding to the studio to do this and coming across Pennsylvania Avenue when I came here in 1979 the prime interest rate and country was around 20 percent we were immersed in the Iranian hostage situation you had inflation was double-digit and it was the era of Mally's I would say mayonnaise um the I was riding a bus down Pennsylvania Avenue commuting the Capitol Hill where I worked those days Pennsylvania Avenue was open all the way through right I've ever had I couldn't afford to drive a car or anything in and the world changes things change in your life so was I was I'd in a in a position to despair them absolutely things weren't really looking at but you are obligated not to despair now about our country yeah things may not look good but we are obligated not to despair on the do I know what the outcome is going to be no do I know that we're going to be vindicated no but that's not why you do it you don't do it to necessarily persuade that you to be to feel that you're going to persuade other people you do it because it's right and it's the and and I think we are obligated to do that do I hope that at some point it becomes the sort of the prevailing view yes but I have no guarantee and I don't do it under condition that I win so I don't mind writing the sense but I don't write them to be sure I write them because I think I'm right yeah and that I think that it's sort of like I think we're obligated to show on the sort of that those who are not there to say to them here's a way I think it should be done and here's why it's not like you cast a vote in the Senate or something like that you have to explain everything right and you have that wonderful opportunity to do precisely that you explain it to your colleagues to I love that's I love working with Justice Scalia that because you read everything it all mattered syntax mattered vocabulary mattered the history mattered everything in the small case the big case you didn't just wait for the big case and then show up and said that's all I care about not enough every single case every single sentence every phrase every turn of phrase every footnote and so the you you work that way with people you persuade them you bring them along they in fact they also then help as you write your opinions even when they disagree if they challenge this point then you have to respond to that you have to make the point sharper this point may be unclear but by challenging it you have to clarify that makes sense totally now and one of the great things about America is even one doesn't if one doesn't like these opinions these decisions you do have to write the opinions I mean it's a kind of if you think about that for a minute if people think about that it's a it shows the commitment of our government really it's certainly the judicial branch to having to defend one's opinions right you don't just have a vote and that's it and no one has to explain the vote and so once you have the X the requirement of explanation is a kind of tribute to the importance of reasoning and the fact that self-government involves thinking about what the right thing to do is it's not just majority vote that's it you know be quiet if you lose your hate I mean it no it was a I was in the term I go to Gettysburg is that right and I take my law clerks there and we that's great we were there one time a little round top I kind of liked all these things I loved Gettysburg yeah so this guy runs up to me he's breathless and he's like even like in great shape you know but he's breathless he's handling me he said look I want you to sign this and he had this opinion of mine on a sort of fake parchment paper he printed it out and he said and I looked at it was like a Federal Maritime Commission opinion I had written I said I said was it he said I read to us he said thank you I'm not a lawyer but I understand it thank you for writing it in a way that I understand it and it's sort of like I enfranchised them or something but at any rate he hands me this thing it's why are you reading the Federal Maritime Commission opinion he said that's what this is all about speaking of Gettysburg I said I had no idea is just a Federal Maritime Commission but think about it when you write and I also think opinions have to be accessible they have to be like the wraps on a street or something like that they have to be accessible to our fellow citizens it's their constitution so this guy that was probably one of the great moments for me so here was a guy who's not a lawyer not a scholar or anything he's just a citizen who believes in his country and wants to follow what's happening to his country in his constitution and the opinion is accessible to it didn't say you agreed with me by day but he said he understood yeah so he felt as though he was a part of whatever process it was that was going on at Supreme Court I think sometimes when we write these opinions we make them rewrite in language that's inaccessible you know I tell my law clerks you know we genius it's taking a twenty dollar idea and putting it in a two dollar sentence it's not taking a two dollar idea and putting it in a twenty dollar sentence and I think sometimes we do the latter not the former and on the I think it's really important to sort of not in the sense or in concurrences whatever to show the average to explain to people what we're doing and why we're doing it not to come up with words you know negative present writing it's levels of generality you know double entendre x' and all these sorts of things that people are thinking oh my goodness what the heck is going on there you know sort of it sort of hides the ball I think we should do better than that yeah that's what government by reflection and choice right you have to see the reflection then understand and understand it yeah you mentioned your your grandparents and your grandfather and your memoir my grandfather's son which came out almost ten years ago is in my opinion one of the really great American memoirs could have been called the education of Clarence Thomas the education of Henry Adams is another famous memoir but I prefer yours personally but but talk a little bit about that what so what shapes you what influenced you what educated you over the years what thinkers what people you know I think there's you sort of advance in life you you know I've never been sort of an reflect a lot you know when you're working long hours and things but then as time goes on you especially in the world we're in now you know you reflect about how did we get here and it is totally I always tell my wife and that is my whole life is just one miracle after another because it doesn't make any sense anymore because it should have ended tragically but my grandparents were the scene a quinone of that not happening and it's just literally fortuitous and then we'll go into it too much but the that we wound up living with them in 1955 and then a series of things out of that the he had converted to the Catholic Church and as a result of that he was close to the nuns and as a result of that I was able to go to parochial schools but he was not himself a well-educated he had nine months of education his entire life Wow and I remember sitting there and watching him look at a piece of paper as though it was a mystery I watched him probably this the hardest things were to watch him look up a name let's say he was going to look up big Bill Kristol and he had it written down on a piece of paper that's the only way he would look it up you wrote it your name down he needed your number and he would sit there and start with the A's in the phone book well and start looking for your name and he would go down every page looking for the old girl yeah and then as I was probably third or fourth grade he would just say look my eyes are bad um you look it up and of course I would immediately just go okay right then just write it there but he wanted you to obviously to be educated well that's why I think they and he and the people around us my grandmother who went to sixth grade although the people in your neighborhood and my cousin my cousin had II for example was totally illiterate on Miss back miss Gladys they weren't educated but they thought it was really important and boy gets you education or get it in your head and they can't take it away from you it was over I mean it became sort of like a Holy Grail alright yeah I remember the book you discussed being at the library as a very little kid I think tried maybe it was a six year old or seven well something seven I mean I I still let that probably you know they never it so it's sort of interesting there were things they didn't want us to do but going to the library and school were like and that's you can always go and this was the public library near you what is the Carnegie Library because I graduated I guess black library and was right people make it seem like oh it was horrible it it was a library ain't it right you didn't have good butts they had words on in them I am there and the people could not have been better anyway on Saturday started actually still living my mother you're living in the lane and on Saturday mornings they would have little readings for little kids in the basement on the ground floor of that library and honestly it was about the cookies and punch that he gave you it was not about the books I was not I wasn't all that interested in that but the lady was really nice and I think that's how I came across like dr. Seuss or whomever and then later on I developed that love for going that library in the the people there were just wonderful they introduced you to things like Encyclopedia Britannica encyclopedia Americana the National Geographic all the newspapers Life magazine look magazine I mean they're all there's like this treasure trove and so it close at nine o'clock and my grandfather the only time we could stay out after dark was if I was at the library so god I spend a lot of time there and the most common interaction with the librarians are Shh kind of like you sort of this this is a contemplative environment and the nuns nuns were the that's they were just wonderful and they were Irish immigrants there was a missionary Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception and they taught us I mean I started thinking I got this grow Keo school segregated to Ord oh yeah every day had to be they couldn't yep even though they didn't believe it I mean they they did not believe in it I believe that we were inherently equal we were all God's children so the nuns pushed traditional education they believed you know you had National Catholic exams and they wanted us to perform so the you know they pushed they were very demanding on and I still can remember and I don't even know if these things are still around there was this SR a reading program and we didn't speak Standard English at home obviously but there was this program you just have to do all these exercises I thought oh my god I'll never learn but they never stopped trying diagramming sentences vocabulary syntax grammar etc even though they knew when I we went home we did not speak Standard English they demanded that we learn it and I thank them for this because they would not allow us to remain uneducated well that's great then you went to Holy Cross with to one or two seminary and then you went to Holy Cross for college and I think you wrote that that's a very important that was very important for you well I was lucky I mean I just I quit seminary and a half I have this things happen when you're 19 years old it's not like you're thinking straight and the so I'm wound up at Holy Cross my last three years of college and I was it was fortuitous because it was a different Holy Cross and it was the traditional liberal arts education and I was blessed to have had a very traditional liberal arts background a background in in high school and Latin and in sciences and languages German and French that's amazing we were discussing that filming yeah so you took Latin French and German in high school in a segregated high school well I was going in in a segregated high school tonight transfer and then went to all white schools I went to all black then all whites with the exception of me and then one other kid and then me the last two years I was there and so there I had Latin on which was pretty intense German and I didn't have French say hey I had the two years of French in the habla okay laughs don't let I find even less and then I have French again in college Wow but then you had like physics and chemistry and all those things and there were only nine kids in my graduating class so it wasn't like you could hide right and so that was very good to me but then Holy Cross was wonderful because didn't allow you it was a period when you couldn't get away with with hiding from education you had to there was on we had a lot of required courses and very few electives and then were you always interested in politics and government early I was never science and that's that never never I was never interested in politics and not a lot of the people that make the most difference in my opinion in politics weren't that interested in politics yeah anyway we what were you science literature or I was you know what had to be honest with you I just won the only goal I've ever had was to be a priest well that I just and I had and everything else is by default when I was at Holy Cross College I couldn't really figure out what to do my problem was I grew up speaking a dialect Geechee and um on people not as geekier Gullah and then coastal Carolina's in Georgia and I needed to learn English and so I majored in English in order to learn English to speak English and division and then I was going to be a lawyer and just returned to Savannah it's all I ever wanted to do so I'm going to be a priest or become a lawyer and return to Savannah that's it but you didn't return to Savannah now I was on my way when I stopped here in 1979 the thing that really happened was a sudden my life has been a miracle I could not get a job after law school in Georgia so I wound up taking the only job I got there was one other offer in New Haven but I won't stay in New Haven but I took the only other job and was in Missouri and it was for a Republican senator senator then a Republican Attorney General Jack Danforth and that's how I wound up in Missouri and then when he came to the Senate I went to Monsanto in st. Louis and I figured that was not after two and a half years where I should be so I quit that job he offered me a job here and it was a way to get to the East Coast I was going to do that for a little while then I was gonna head on home and that was 1979 and here we are yeah it's like a lot of people come to Washington and thinking I came think it's for a year or two and you end up here we are sir that's why I'm like but it's good that usually it's good that you stay what I want to say that on behalf of the maritime not gonna be the one but I stayed that's all I can say and what about your education work broadly I mean a thinkers who influenced you I know you discussed in the book I think you mentioned particularly Thomas solo who well thank God is still alive and well in writing at age I don't know 86 really a wonderful economist or more than an economist say say a word about him if you want to write others I don't want it yeah well you know I actually the again I think that the the people in my life who required me to look for actual facts and reason and true I have a lot to do with my development people like my grandparents my grandma he had this one saying that I always loved it he said boy if don't make no sense because it don't make no sense and so you always tried to make sense of things and you look around and you see that there are so many things that didn't make sense and when you ask people for explanations for example when I was in law school you say tell people explain a social policy and they would tell me for example you should believe that because you're black well that's a non-starter with me that's like people he would say when I was in college I think what kind of music you're listened - I said relations you should listen to jazz say there are maybe Hugh Masekela something like I said why because you're black well I'm not going to do that that's like in the south you have to be in this park go to that school because you're black I'm not doing it so I started listening to other music you know like classical or country or whatever now what am I but the Tom's soul was a guy who I ran into when I was in law school when he wrote a book called black education myths and tragedies and that I thought no I lied said you know that the black guy can't think that way so I tossed it some years later in the mid 1970s 1976 or so I was in Jefferson City Missouri and ran across his book a review of his book by Michael Novak in the Wall Street Journal of Tom Saul's but race and economics and a friend of mine who since passed away brought it to my attention I said I'll I'll be there this guy is pointing out something that makes sense on race and education set aside I found race and economics and read it I mean literally gobbled it now I wolfed it down ever way you want to put it I said finally it makes sense but you'd never met Tom I've never met her never it would be 1978 after I moved to st. Louis that I met him uh-huh and I just I went over to he was someone showed me a brochure he was appearing at Washington University Law School and so I'd go over in my little cheap suit and he's debating one professor Ruth Bader Ginsburg is that right yeah and so I go over and I'm going to get my book signed and as a group he and I listen to the debate and he signs my book and licks at me like well because there weren't that many people there but I was there you know I'm enthusiastic another person on that program that who was not on that particular panel was one professor Antonin Scalia and I just thought as fast and I was 1978 at Washington University that's the first time I met him and it would be in near 1980 or so when I was in Washington that I would meet him again and we became friends that's great other and he his work is very much worth reading and some of it's on race but a lot of it isn't a lot of different things a lot of the same his law it's real important and a lot of cultural things but you know and I would say in high school everybody's wonderful people they were the people at the library there were these ladies at a little bookstore there was a people at Savannah public library and the Carnegie Library and the nuns who introduced me to different things the father Cuddy who was my English teacher in the seminary High School Seminary every six weeks you were required to do a book report independent of your other work so you read books like failsafe and but never back then right and there were other books that you would you but it had to be something serious and he had to approve it so I started sort of reading more serious things not just sports books and comic books and things like that and so you you eventually with these wonderful ladies God is if people have been so good to me there are these wonderful people who introduced me to books like by you know like Richard Wright or Ralph Ellison I mean you know Richard Wright was popular back there but there were the angry novels in native son blackboard outsider then you had Ralph Ellison invisible man so they were race-related so of course I was fascinated by these and how complicated it was particularly with Ralph Ellison as you wrestle with all these things sort of like these stereotypes and who you really are then she and they introduced me then I'm gonna kid I'm like 16 17 years old they introduced me to I and ran so then I wind up Rita wound up reading with Fountainhead Atlas Shrugged etc and I would continue reading them from time to time throughout the rest of my life so the then you start thinking think about why I would in Georgia be interested sort of libertarian ideology you see these sort of the the rules that the state imposes on you because of race because of this or because of that and you can't do anything about it so the libertarian sir well I don't want that I mean you want less of that or none of that and it was very attractive but I started reading those things so all these ideas take seed and then you take philosophy and and I was you know you took a lot of the meal lists and things like that in college I wasn't all that interested in them so but it's just again those were just people then you know I read I mean later in life you know I read you know the for example your mother I mean I the the end that you know the Victorian virtues Jewish virtues I think it was a piece that she had written and I just I'd see those sorts of things the ideas the ideals appealed to me so I would read I mean voraciously and it would be later on that idea that this lot that you should learn you are required to learn you're required to go to the front of the Train when I was at EEOC then when I hired Australians to work with me Canon misuki and John Marini and so we started reading more of this stuff and started discussing it more in going to the Political Science Association meetings but the idea was to find the ideas to think about them and as my grandfather says to the other side of what he said was to make sense of these things why this government why this form of government what not just this policy but why why us the larger questions and try to answer them is there why I'm curious is there one to novelists or philosophers or essayist that you come back to the most or that you sort of you know particularly treasure I mean it's you've read very widely and and the different stages in your life different types of literature essays biographies I mean I've just like come back to kill a mockingbird is that right come back to that one did you read that as a young man yeah and then I went to the movie and it was course it was particularly poignant in the 1960s yeah so we all in some extent become Gregory Peck right the and it was probably why I even thought of law because all I knew about law and I come back to a native son to invisible man invisible man it's just a I looked at I had I should review the whole thing I looked at it under some reason a few years ago I think we had something in the Weekly Standard maybe about Allison that's an amazing book which I don't think is read nearly as much as it should because it does lay into the narratives now we are a world of narratives right and what he was wrestling with was precisely that where we've created these stereotypes and they interact with each other I'm supposed to have a stereotype of you you of me right and then the individuals over here and it's important to date through all of that stuff and I started wrestling with that in high school the individual the versus and and then of course were they and ran the individual versus collective but they're also the individual versus the stereotypes right and their stereotypes and lots of ways we have them the day that if you're black you're supposed to do this or do that and also fast we're creative with our sameness so you know we all are supposed to look a certain way you know and that's individuality but we all look to saying we're doing the same things and these were things that were going on back in the 60s you define yourself you're black you must have an afro you know so I don't refuse to have one so what am I right you know I refused I prefer to be me well you can't because you're black no no and so I think Ralph Ellison got it and in the you'd side I come back to that yeah you know and but there are other things I mean I read widely I mean I try to read books that people say they've read and if the founders or earlier justices who particularly you admire you would want you would recommend to a young person you know they said we should I read a biography of you know one I went through college I didn't know whatever assigned any biographies was that's not what they do anymore right maybe God was what they read social history and well as whatever but what would you say I mean who do you know I don't I think to be honest with you I think if they just read I just I tried to read things that I was interested in at that time um and then to stretch myself some and to read about things I was interested and if I had a question about reconstruction and I read what's his name he's a more of an revisionist historian up at Columbia but he wrote a book on reconstruction and I may not agree with him on two things but you know it's a very interesting book on reconstruction so ah I just finished a history of the of the English dying sky robert toombs you know and that's pretty long before you start reading books that people say they've read that they haven't read like The Wealth of Nations yeah you know they people how many people you know actually read that or human action I've on me you know many people say well I rather it is you know they've read like a cliff note or something but I think we're obligated to read these things to think about them but for young people I said just read yeah and not just just sort of current events but to push yourself I tend to like the classical things if I think if I had could encourage them to put one paper bag on their on their desk and read it occasionally without getting into too deep about things personally and it would be hills dales constitutional reader right from Hillsdale College because it's one button and it has a lot of the founding documents it has the Constitution the Declaration it's got it all in one place and it has the progressives disagree some of the criticisms and if you just did that you will be one of the better informed people in the country if you have to watch if you even if you don't read I still think for me that John Adams series was important I mean the the book would be great if they read it but I understand I'm being sort of realistic I think that series was really quite good or any of the Civil War stuff on the I read I remember I think the Civil War is pivotal in our country on race and the post-civil war reconstruction all of its really important and Jim Macpherson wrote a really good book that was influential back in the eighties a battle cry of freedom and the game tiredness and it just really it's a one volume series on civil war I happen to be a big Churchill fan because I didn't understand why the rest of the world allowed Hitler to goose-step across the world I said I was wrong evil is evil and that's how I discovered Churchill back in the 1980s and any big fan of Churchill yeah for a lot of reasons but none I'm a big fan of Lincoln and I think biographies of Lincoln of great people I'm a big fan of Frederick Douglass yes well he's fantastic yeah and you quote him I think at the beginning of a wonderful quote at the beginning of one of your opinions just years ago I think yeah a number I've quoted him in speeches and I'm a huge fan I mean if you want to read a biography read his yeah someone's a wonderful yeah autobiography and and same thing with Lincoln yeah I'm a big fan of book D Washington absolutely he was very popular during my youth and is that right so he wasn't yet so politically incorrect that you couldn't read him oh I didn't political and you can sign it but he was still okay in this in the 50s he was that was popular yeah he was one of the most popular people among blacks and sound yeah and my grandfather in fact there were lots of people's in whose name with Booker T and there's a great group Booker T and the MGS yeah his Booker T I mean so that's a wonderful book actually I'm reading that teaching that in American political thought course him and Douglass I mean really fantastic but they've denigrated yeah Booker T Washington I mean he still have Tuskegee but they've denigrated him and George Washington Carver people like that we grew up with but I just think that there are all these people who have actually done things that you see them under attack they're rewriting them on a no one claimed that they were perfect you know I was just at Monticello and I certainly wouldn't claim that Jefferson was perfect but there are lots of people who are right but the it was it's these are people who have done great things and we should know about them and we should read about things that they have done as well as what they've said I didn't know you took your clerks to Gettysburg I love Gettysburg myself I should get there much more often and I have friends who do staff rides there when they really go over the battle and all that if you are you a student of it do you know god no I just know you've read some of them did you like the John at the Sarna folks on Gettysburg and the movie to choose if you know what to be I've seen the you etch it was shower not shower I guess yeah yeah battle cry either the killer angel yeah and then the wonderful one that they on battle odd in the wilderness over and I in the what was it general ghost and I don't remember the name yeah this is my odds in general Gossage area yeah I've seen both I've seen all of those but not it I love going I do not do the day-long things I have done I usually like to do three or four hours and I go at least once a year it's great and I love every time I go I learn something different I read a lot about it I've read the Shelby Foote Series I don't know and I got into that I go through these periods one year it's economics another year its history it was a civil war for a while and Churchill for a number of years Lincoln for a while so but Gettysburg is central I mean if the South had won in Gettysburg I would not be sitting here this would be a very different country yeah and so it's a pivotal moment in our history and it was a moment where the great contradiction comes ahead that you have what the declaration says you have what the Constitution says but the great contradiction of slavery and it's just it's just that contradiction look at it we're still suffering from it you have the the the one of the reasons why there were so many of us who thought that Plessy was such a horrible opinion is because it extends the contradiction right and it and then that goes on till the 20th century when what and if you go back and you read I would Harlan saying he knew he's from the easy he was the only southerner who sat on that case is I did not know that's right he's from Kentucky okay they just go and take a look he understood what that meant the implications of it and look at the long-term implications what if the court did would say the Iowa Supreme Court had done long before that and just simply said the Constitution knows no color let's assume that that Harlan's opinion was the majority opinion you see what I'm saying yeah now I'm not saying you would have a perfect world but you would never have had another almost century of this yeah yeah these things really do matter right baby they are it all matters so you asked me earlier about dissenting and what if Harlan went along because everybody else went along right what if Harlan went along because well he couldn't go to the club anymore because people would be after what if they started calling him slurs because he didn't go along what if they say you're an outlier what if they said that you know you're not it with the mainstream what does that make him the fact that he's an outlier does that make him wrong who was right right the court the majority or the dissent and what if there were no dissent by her yeah you said you loved the dissent I loved it justice Marshall loved it it was something to hang on so maybe it didn't persuade his colleague but it persuaded history right now that's so moving for you to say that and and impressive oh I shouldn't end without discussion think one another thing you care the most about Nebraska football I suppose and that's how did you become a huge Nebraska fan I don't see you know it seems like you are a huge arrest oh yeah yeah absolutely my why out-of-control watch oh yeah right in fact I'll tell you I was watching on Wednesday night the Nebraska volleyball teams the number one team in the country and we just be Illinois we just beaten that there's so many right team in the Big Ten what happens when your football team goes downhill a little bit suddenly it's the volleyball team no no no no no no no no you I mean you should see these are these are wonderful women is is a great pack anyway our football team is back in I mean we're number 50 in the country now so we're headed back up but I you know what my wife is from Nebraska my wife has totally my best friend in Virginia and I've been married almost 30 years and just she's the love of my life and her mother was just really she and I were very clothes and her mother was a big fan or father was a big fan in season tickets for 50 years is that yeah and I just I liked what I like Nebraska like the fight I would move the Nebraska in a heartbeat on the I like the idea of moving the Supreme Court to Nebraska that might be fine maybe it might make them a little more grounded and rota light without one bloody thanks but um I would love I mean I like the fact that graduate a lot of players you take a guy like they 90 percent of their players who stay for their eligibility graduate they have the large large highest number of academic all-americans in the nation well on the I just like I mean they're three Nebraska players on the Redskins all graduated from college right on the they're wonderful people and I I happen to like it I like Tom Osborne it was a coach when I years one of those national championships I like the enthusiasm I like the fact that the opposing teams are cheered not booed I like the way they treat each other and they've had the last time they did not sell out a football game was at Cuban Missile Crisis is that right that's the last time his off at Air Force Base is there and the silos of it psych was there the the women the volleyball team that you didn't talked about highest attendance in the nation they standing-room-only over 8,000 per match and so you can see I am a yeah not every first volleyball softball and it doesn't matter if it's Nebraska I'm for it and I think a part of that is that the city we get really full of ourselves and we can become self-important and sort of there's an in celerity to it it's sort of a self-sustaining insularity and sort of a self exultation and I think you got to get out of this stuff in one way out I'm a Motorhome or two and we we go with literally I mean you might be staying in the truck stop or the park or some other place a restaurant and you do this during the summer when you're out of well I'd do much this summer because I was doing starry decisis but I just I love I mean we've been doing it up 17 years right and there's a wonder out here a democracy I mean where people can be in a small pup pop up tip they could be hiking on the back of a motorcycle but there's just just great country of people doing all this stuff out of here and you meet them and they don't know who you are but there's sort of this common experience and you get to see the wonder of the country but if we stay here we become self-importance it's sort of like we feed on each other we push each other up we pump each other up you know we just sort of like what's important here but getting away from it going out to Nebraska going to the football game talking to people talking to the guy who just got off a combine to come and watch the game you know or who has a feedlot you know or who has just a regular job and have something in common with them it's the same thing in the RV parks you got something in common with with people from totally different backgrounds we were sitting in an RV park some years ago in Ludington Michigan Pancho's pond and I'm sitting there talking that his fellow and I think he had retired from the postal service or something and he said where you from we told him we were from DC area and he said what do you do I'll just do some lies that's good and he went on and he talked about whatever he was talking about I mean I think we sat there a couple of hours all right he ever had a clue who I was and I wasn't going to tell it because it would have ruined the moment but that's one of my great experiences and that's been replicated hundreds of times all over this country but it keeps you normal it's like football or going to my volleyball games or something you're with the rest of your country as opposed to insulated or isolated from them and you've been at the court and it truly is the marble palace over there we're isolated even from DC and I think you I think we all should be a little bit concerned about that I mean not that we can be that isolated at least I don't want it to distort too much the way I do things I don't think it has in your case and thank you for for for what you've done for on the court and for the country and thank you for joining me for this conversation it was really terrific and thank you for taking time you've got the court the term begins next week is that right so this was great to be able to get you before you get swamped in those writing those dissents and and maybe some majority opinions as well I would okay I'm not gonna be too hopeful I don't think you know it was swamped my first term we're not exactly killing you the number of cases although it's good when you can decide on your own workload right that's a good big advantage as well you know it's really got an interesting and maybe we shouldn't be doing any more it would do well that's a good point yes so it cuts down on opportunities I can actually think we're doing as many as we probably should be doing for now it may change with the demands but you know we could probably do up to 110 120 pretty safely but I don't think that we're voiding case know that I just think they're simply not there good well thank you so much for take nice guy and thank you for joining us on conversations

Channel: Conversations with Bill Kristol

Views: 62,577

Rating: 4.7820511 out of 5

Keywords: Clarence Thomas, United States Supreme Court, Law, Antonin Scalia, Bill Kristol, Constitutional Law, Originalism, U.S. Constitution

Id: Q3rZknW5gAk

Length: 69min 37sec (4177 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 22 2016

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[u/coldnorthwz]

Probably one of the more fascinating stories of how someone got to the Supreme Court.