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| Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke Monday before students and local residents at Lee Chapel. (LAURE BARON/The Rockbridge Report) |
Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told Rockbridge County residents Monday to “earn the sacrifices” of their forefathers and “preserve liberty for future generations.”
Thomas, the nation’s second black Supreme Court justice, urged students and community residents gathered Washington and Lee University’s Lee Chapel to hold tight to their optimism to achieve that goal.
“This is a challenging time. All times are challenging, really, but somehow you’ve got to be positive,” Thomas said. “Treat people the way you want to be treated. Be humble — we’ll all be a bit better off.”
It was a rare speech for Thomas, who is known for refusing interviews and shying away from public appearances. Following a messy and lengthy confirmation hearing process in 1991, which included allegations by a former co-worker of sexual harassment, he faded from the limelight, becoming one of the high court’s quietest members.
But what most listeners took away from the conservative justice’s hour-long remarks was not what he said, but how he said it.
“I was just so impressed with what a sense of humor he has,” said Lauren Santabar, a W&L senior. “He’s so warm … not what you think of when you hear ‘Supreme Court justice.’ ”
Thomas prompted laughter in the chapel as he cracked jokes several times throughout the night.
On judges’ opinions: “They just make them up.”
On amicus briefs: “They should just call them the ‘Let’s just get ourselves involved briefs.’ ”
On his college days: “I don’t have an iconic view of the ’60s. I’m just glad I survived.”
An “originalist” interpreter of the Constitution, Thomas considers the words of the document with the framers’ intentions in mind. While a staunch supporter of this approach, he admitted that he did not have answers to tough issues such as abortion or the death penalty.
That impressed Jacque Linton, a W&L senior.
“He is obviously smart enough to know to say that he’s not an expert,” Linton said.
Contact, a W&L student-run committee that invites speakers to campus, brought Thomas to Lexington. President Robin Wright said committee members set their sights on the justice because his position in the judiciary system attracts international renown.
He arrived at Lee Chapel to find a waiting audience that included many local supporters.
County resident Loretta Simpson called Thomas one of her heroes. She said she admires the justice’s dedication to standing up for what he believes in and would be happy to hear “anything out of his mouth.”
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| The audience gave three standing ovations during Thomas' appearance. (LAURE BARON/The Rockbridge Report) |
Another local admirer who braved the rainy weather was Natural Bridge resident William Mack. Mack, who had read Thomas’ best-selling book“My Grandfather’s Son,” made his way to the chapel on crutches, to hear what the justice had to say. Mack said he once traveled to Washington, D.C., to see Thomas on the bench.
“I sat listening to cases all day,” Mack said. “He spoke, but only one time.”
Thomas talked to his audience about the importance of seeing the big picture, which he said involves observing people from afar. That quality was something he said his grandfather, Myers Anderson, stressed to him when Thomas was a boy growing up in Georgia.
Thomas described how his grandfather told him to see opportunity amid racial ridicule while attending primary school in Savannah and during his time at both the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., and Yale University Law School. He said he attended both schools during the era of Affirmative Action begun by presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Today, Thomas said, he keeps the big picture in mind by taking annual trips to the Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, Pa., with his court clerks. The visits remind his team that while they spend all day trying to discern the intention of the men who wrote the Constitution, they themselves play just a “bit part on the big stage in the preservation of liberties.”
Thomas said he uses that sense of humility whenever he hears a case. While the public often glorifies the justices’ work, they are not special, Thomas said. They are not all- knowing and they are not charged with deriving new truths from the Constitution, only interpreting what is already there, he said.
“I’m not going to cook gourmet meals with your Constitution,” he said.
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