Source: https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/to-help-not-to-hurt
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 16:28:21+00:00

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This Essay seeks to correct the myriad misapprehensions about Justice Thomas’s racial equality decisions. These opinions reflect, first and foremost, his conviction that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, as properly understood, precludes the government from discriminating against and between people on the basis of race.8 What distinguishes his racial equality opinions, making them both compelling and controversial, is that he also explains why he believes that race-based government policies are not only unconstitutional, but also unwise, unjust, and harmful to their intended beneficiaries.
Our approach is descriptive: we seek to explain his views on race using his own words and drawing upon his life experiences. In Part I, we begin with the proposition that it is impossible to comprehend Justice Thomas’s views on racial equality without understanding how his life experiences uniquely influence his approach to questions of race and the law.9 In Part II, we turn to several recurring themes in his racial equality opinions: his belief that racial preferences stigmatize their beneficiaries;10 his concern that the prevailing notion that racial integration is necessary to black achievement is rooted in a presumption of racial inferiority;11 his worry that affirmative action efforts provide cover for the failure to address the urgent needs of disadvantaged Americans;12 and his knowledge that seemingly benign policies can mask illicit motives.13 In closing, we briefly address the claim that Justice Thomas’s race opinions are out of step with his stated jurisprudential commitments.
Justice Thomas’s race jurisprudence is, foremost, informed by his understanding of what the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment demands.34 His race opinions, however, have a moral dimension that distinguish them from his opinions in other areas. Justice Thomas does not just disagree with the legal foundations of these decisions. He believes that they are morally wrong, harmful to their intended beneficiaries, and disrespectful of African-American achievements and abilities.
Justice Thomas’s moral condemnation of the Court’s willingness to permit what it terms “benign” racial discrimination is based on three principal concerns.
In racial equality cases, it is true that Justice Thomas often goes further and responds to his critics on their terms. Although Justice Thomas has been criticized for not affording sufficient respect to precedent,81 he has challenged his critics to defend affirmative action policies under Brown and its progeny. Similarly, his detractors criticize him for failing to consider the moral and practical consequences of ruling one way or the other in constitutional cases.82 Justice Thomas, however, has spoken directly to the moral and the practical problems posed by the policies being challenged in the cases before the Court. Justice Thomas’s willingness to engage in this way reflects the importance of the debate to both him and the nation. But it does not mean his opinions are out of sync with the jurisprudential principles upon which he bases his decisions.
William S. Consovoy is a partner at Consovoy McCarthy Park, PLLC. He served as a law clerk to Justice Thomas, October Term 2008. Nicole Stelle Garnett is the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame. She served as a law clerk to Justice Thomas, October Term 1998.
Preferred Citation: William S. Consovoy & Nicole Stelle Garnett, “To Help, Not To Hurt”: Justice Thomas’s Equality Canon, 127 Yale L.J. F. 221 (2017), http://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/to-help-not-to-hurt.
2016 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of Justice Clarence Thomas’s appointment to the Supreme Court. This Collection offers a series of reflections on Justice Thomas's tenure on the Court and his impact on the law.
See Randall Kennedy, Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal 87-143 (2008).
See infra text accompanying notes 77-82.
See infra text accompanying notes 14-33.
See infra text accompanying notes 23-39.
See infra text accompanying notes 41-55.
See infra text accompanying notes 66-76.
See infra text accompanying notes 56-61.
Clarence Thomas, My Grandfather’s Son (2007).
Id. at 6, 14-15, 28, 32-33, 50.
Thomas, supra note 14, at 106-107; Thomas Sowell, Race and Economics (1975).
Thomas, supra note 14, at 13.
Id. at 78-79 (describing busing as a “harebrained social experiment”).
Grutter, 539 U.S. at 350 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
Id. at 745 (Thomas, J., concurring).
Id. at 114 (Thomas, J., concurring).
Id. at 122 (citing Fordice, 505 U.S. at 748 (Thomas, J., concurring)).
Jenkins, 515 U.S. at 122 (Thomas, J., concurring).
558 U.S. 310, 394 (2010) (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
Grutter, 539 U.S. at 371 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
See, e.g., Mark Tushnet, A Court Divided: The Rehnquist Court & The Future of Constitutional Law 72 (2005).
See Jeffrey Rosen, Moving On: In His Latest Incarnation, Justice Clarence Thomas Takes His Text From Booker T. Washington, New Yorker, Apr. 29, 1996, at 66-73.
See Robert Lee Hotchkiss, Jr., Clarence Thomas Is Too a Hypocrite!, L.A. Times (Oct. 18, 2007), http://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-oew-hotchkiss18oct18-story.html [http://perma.cc/35Y4-3AJS].
See Jack E. White, Uncle Tom Justice, Time (June 26, 1995) http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,134324,00.html [http://perma.cc/U44A-5C45].
Clarence Thomas, Speech to the National Bar Association (July 28, 1998), http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/speech-to-the-national-bar-association [http://perma.cc/Y96P-N76S].
Id. at 56-65; see also Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Just Another Brother on the SCT?: What Justice Clarence Thomas Teaches Us About the Influence of Racial Identity, 90 Iowa L. Rev. 931 (2005) (arguing that Justice Thomas’s thought is deeply grounded in black conservatism); Stephen F. Smith, Clarence X? The Black Nationalist Behind Justice Thomas’s Constitutionalism, 4 N.Y.U. J.L. & Liberty 583, 625 (2009) (arguing that Justice Thomas has developed “a distinctive brand of conservative jurisprudence that is infused with black nationalism”).
Thomas, supra note 14, at 106 (describing his reaction to Sowell’s book: “I felt like a thirsty man gulping down a glass of cool water. Here was a black man who was saying what I thought.”).
Jeffrey Toobin, Unforgiven: Why Is Clarence Thomas So Angry?, New Yorker (Nov. 12, 2007), http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/11/12/unforgiven [http://perma.cc/3GND-C29T].
Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 551 U.S. 701, 780-81 (2007) (Thomas, J., concurring).
Id. at 147 (“I feared that the unintended effects of social-engineering policies like urban renewal would be at least as bad as the problems themselves.”).
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 372 (2003) (Thomas, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (expressing frustration that proponents of affirmative action “will never address the real problems facing ‘underrepresented minorities,’ instead continuing their social experiments on other people’s children.”).
Id. at 349 (quoting Frederick Douglass, What the Black Man Wants: An Address Delivered in Boston, Massachusetts (Jan. 26, 1865), in 4 The Frederick Douglass Papers 59, 68 (J. Blassingame & J. McKivigan eds., 1991)).
Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 551 U.S. 701, 778 (2007) (Thomas, J., concurring).
See Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U.S. 200, 240 (1995) (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment).
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 350 (2003) (Thomas, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
515 U.S. 70, 115 (1995) (Thomas, J., concurring) (quoting Keyes v. Sch. Dist. No. 1, Denver, 413 U.S. 189, 205-206 (1973)).
Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2007) (Thomas, J., concurring).
See, e.g., Jared A. Levy, Note, Blinking at Reality: The Implications of Justice Clarence Thomas’s Influential Approach to Race and Education, 78 B.U. L. Rev. 575 (1998); Ellen Goodman, Color Clarence Thomas Conservative, Seattle Times (July 6, 2007), http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/color-clarence-thomas-conservative [http://perma.cc/3XSP-4YKS]; Clarence Lusane, Clarence Thomas as “Judge Dread,” Balt. Sun (July 13, 1995), http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-07-13/news/1995194034_1_justice-thomas-clarence-thomas-court-justice-clarence [http://perma.cc/2S92-ZV8U].
Fisher v. Univ. of Tex. at Austin (Fisher I), 133 S. Ct. 2411, 2429 (2013) (Thomas, J., concurring).
545 U.S. 469, 522 (Thomas, J., dissenting) (quoting Wendell E. Pritchett, The “Public Menace” of Blight: Urban Renewal and the Private Uses of Eminent Domain, 21 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 1, 47 (2003)).
Adam Liptak, Justice Defends Ruling on Finance, N.Y. Times (Feb. 3, 2010), http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/us/politics/04scotus.html [http://perma.cc/3RKT-J2CS].
Leonard v. Texas, 137 S. Ct. 847 (2017) (statement of Thomas, J., respecting the denial of certiorari).
Fisher v. Univ. of Tex. at Austin (Fisher I), 133 S. Ct. 2411, 2432 (2013) (Thomas, J., concurring).
Id. at 676 (Thomas, J., concurring) (quoting Frederick Douglass, The Blessings of Liberty and Education: An Address Delivered in Manassas, Virginia (Sept. 3, 1894), in 5 The Frederick Douglass Papers 623 (J. Blassingame & J. McKivigan eds., 1992)).
André Douglas Pond Cummings, Grutter v. Bollinger, Clarence Thomas, Affirmative Action and the Treachery of Originalism: “The Sun Don’t Shine Here in This Part of Town”, 21 Harv. BlackLetter L.J. 1, 4-5 (2005).
Brando Simeo Starkey, Inconsistent Originalism and the Need for Equal Protection Re-Invigoration, 4 Geo. J.L. & Mod. Critical Race Persp. 1, 20 (2012). See generally Joel K. Goldstein, Calling Them As He Sees Them: The Disappearance of Originalism in Justice Thomas’s Opinions on Race, 74 Md. L. Rev. 79 (2014) (arguing that Justice Thomas abandons originalism and embraces moral and consequentialist arguments in race cases).
A resolution of the scholarly dispute about the original meaning of the Equal Protection clause is beyond the scope of this Essay. See, e.g., Michael B. Rappaport, Originalism and the Colorblind Constitution, 89 Notre Dame L. Rev. 71 (2013).
See, e.g., Chris Gaspard, Kimbrough and Gall: Taking Another “Crack” at Expanding Judicial Discretion Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, 36 Pepp. L. Rev. 757, 804 (2009).
See, e.g., Christopher E. Smith & Cheryl D. Lema, Justice Clarence Thomas and Incommunicado Detention: Justifications and Risks, 39 Val. U. L. Rev. 783, 801 (2005).

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