Clarence Thomas:
Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist who serves as an associate member of the United States Supreme Court. President George H. W. Bush nominated him to succeed Thurgood Marshall, and he has served since 1991. Following Marshall, Thomas is the Court's second African American member, its longest-serving member since Anthony Kennedy's departure in 2018, and its oldest member since Stephen Breyer's retirement in 2022.
Thomas was born in the Georgia town of Pin Point. His grandpa reared him in a destitute Gullah hamlet near Savannah when his father abandoned the family. Growing up as a committed Catholic, Thomas aspired to be a priest in the Catholic Church but became dissatisfied with the church's weak efforts to combat prejudice.
He gave up his dream of becoming a priest to attend the College of the Holy Cross and, later, Yale Law School, where he was influenced by a number of conservative authors, most notably Thomas Sowell, who altered his viewpoint from progressive to traditional. He was appointed as an assistant attorney general in Missouri after graduation and eventually went into private practice there.
In 1979, he became a legislative assistant to US Senator John Danforth, and in 1981, he was appointed Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the US Department of Education. The following year, President Ronald Reagan named Thomas as Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
Thomas was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President George H. W. Bush in 1990. He held that position for 19 months before taking Marshall's seat on the Supreme Court. The confirmation hearings for Thomas were acrimonious and contentious, centred on allegations that he had sexually harassed Anita Hill, a subordinate at the Department of Education and the EEOC.
Hill claimed that Thomas made many sexual and romantic advances towards her despite her repeated requests to cease. Thomas and his supporters disputed the accusation, claiming that Hill and her political followers made it up in order to obstruct the confirmation of a black conservative to the Supreme Court. Thomas was confirmed by the Senate on a vote of 52-48, the smallest margin in a century.
Since the death of Antonin Scalia, Thomas has been the Court's leading originalist, emphasising the original meaning of the Constitution in interpreting it. In contrast to Scalia, the only other steadfast originalist, he seeks a more conventionally liberal kind of originalism. Thomas was noted for his silence throughout most oral arguments until 2020, but he has subsequently been asking more questions of counsel.
Thomas is well-known for his majority opinions in Good News Club v. Milford Central School (determining religious speech freedom in relation to the First Amendment) and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen (affirming the individual right to bear arms outside the home), as well as his dissent in Gonzales v. Raich. (arguing that Congress may not criminalize the private cultivation of medical marijuana). He is usually regarded as the Court's most conservative justice.
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