Justice Thomas Reveals His Best Day of Law School—Graduation
Justice Clarence Thomas told law students at the University of Alabama on Friday that his best day at Yale Law School was his graduation.
Thomas said law school was extremely difficult, according to stories in the Crimson White and the Tuscaloosa News. The Crimson White says Thomas talked with law students, rather than at them, while the Tuscaloosa News says students “roared with laughter” during the lecture that was “more of a question and answer session.”
“You see my old textbooks, and you’ll see that the textbooks won,” Thomas said. “My journey was in many ways very unhappy and enormously difficult.”
“The best day of school for me was graduation,” he told the students. “I thought law school was extremely difficult. I thought I was going to fail out. I thought I failed the bar exam.”
Thomas, who grew up in rural Pin Point, Ga., said he preferred to hire law clerks from modest backgrounds. “There are too many up there who think they should be there because they’re from an elite background,” he said.
“I’d like to see people from all over the country,” he said. “I’d like to see people from schools besides Harvard and Yale. Everybody can’t be from the same region. My goal is to have a court that’s fair.”
The Associated Press also covered Thomas’ appearance.
Here are more quotes from Thomas, most of them from the Crimson White:
On the difference between the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, and current Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.: Rehnquist “was more of a father figure of the World War II generation. Chief Justice Roberts is more of a contemporary. Rehnquist would kind of glare at you. The new chief justice is too young to do that.”
On friendships on the U.S. Supreme Court: “The court, as I see it, is the special place of Washington, D.C. People are civil. They engage in debate. They legitimately like each other. It’s the first place I’ve seen in Washington where people are genuinely friends.”
On the humbling experience of being a justice: “These cases beat the heck out of me. These cases are really hard. It’s not artwork. It’s deciding cases.”
His reaction to the cases before him: “The most I do after these cases is go home, and I hope and pray I’m right. I try to give my best to every case. I try to be true to the structure of the Constitution, to the words of the Constitution.”
On the importance of his Catholic religion: “I humbled myself before God. I don’t know how you do it without faith.”
On the confirmation process being akin to choosing referees with the hopes of getting favorable calls. “That’s all based on a particular outcome you want. That is the antithesis of judging. You’re corrupting your process. I think the confirmation process is both unnecessary, it’s uninformed with respect to what the court actually does and it’s very dangerous.”
