New Haven, Conn. — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has a 15-cent price tag stuck to his Yale law degree, blaming the school's affirmative action policies in the 1970s for his difficulty finding a job after he graduated.
Some of his black classmates say Thomas needs to get over his grudge because Yale opened the door to extraordinary opportunities.
Thomas' new autobiography, "My Grandfather's Son," shows how the second black justice on the Supreme Court came to oppose affirmative action after his law school experience. He was one of about 10 blacks in a class of 160 who had arrived at Yale after the unrest of the 1960s, which culminated in a Black Panther Party trial in New Haven that nearly caused a large-scale riot.
The conservative justice says he initially considered his admission to Yale a dream, but soon felt he was there because of his race. He says he loaded up on tough courses to prove he was not inferior to his white classmates but considers the effort futile. He says he was repeatedly turned down in job interviews at law firms after his 1974 graduation.
"I learned the hard way that a law degree from Yale meant one thing for white graduates and another for blacks, no matter how much any one denied it," Thomas writes. "I'd graduated from one of America's top law schools, but racial preference had robbed my achievement of its true value."
Thomas says he stores his Yale Law degree in his basement with a 15-cent sticker from a cigar package on the frame.
His view isn't shared by black classmate William Coleman III.
"I can only say my degree from Yale Law School has been a great boon," said Coleman, now an attorney in Philadelphia. "Had he not gone to a school like Yale, he would not be sitting on the Supreme Court."
Coleman's Yale roommate, Bill Clinton, appointed him general counsel to the U.S. Army, one of several top jobs Coleman has held over the years.
Thomas said he began interviewing with law firms at the beginning of his third year of law school.
"Many asked pointed questions unsubtly suggesting that they doubted I was as smart as my grades indicated," he wrote. "Now I knew what a law degree from Yale was worth when it bore the taint of racial preference."
He said it was months before he got an offer, from then-Missouri Attorney General John Danforth.
Steven Duke, a white Yale law professor who taught when Thomas attended Yale, said Thomas is right to say that the significance of someone's degree could be called into question if the person was admitted to an institution on a preferential basis. However, he said that could be overcome by strong performance, noting that two Yale graduates - Danforth and President Bush - put Thomas into top jobs.
"I find it difficult to believe he actually regrets the choice he made," Duke said. "It seems to me he did pretty well."
Some classmates say Thomas - who was raised poor in Georgia and stood out on campus in his overalls and heavy black boots - faced a tougher transition than black students who came from middle-class or privileged backgrounds.
Frank Washington, a black classmate and friend of Thomas who also came from a lower-income background, said he had 42 interviews before he landed a job at a Washington law firm.
"It seemed like I had to go through many more interviews than a lot of my other non-minority classmates," said Washington, now an entrepreneur who owns radio and television stations.
Other black classmates say their backgrounds didn't matter.
Edgar Taplin Jr., raised by a single parent in New Orleans, said he landed a job after graduation at the oldest law firm in New York, and does not recall black graduates struggling more to get jobs than their white classmates.
"My degree was worth a lot more than 15 cents," said Taplin, who retired in 2003 as a global manager with Exxon Mobil.
Comments
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SettingTheRecordStraight (anonymous) says…
"the significance of someone's degree could be called into question if the person was admitted to an institution on a preferential basis."
This is a no-brainer. How can the race hustlers (Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the University of Michigan) defend "affirmative action"?
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (anonymous) says…
"I'd graduated from one of America's top law schools, but racial preference had robbed my achievement of its true value."
Funny how he blames those problems on affirmative action rather than the racist attitudes of those with whom he applied. But his problems getting hired may not be a result of racism, either-- likely it was just clear to the potential employers that he was (and is) a total jerk.
Ragingbear (anonymous) says…
Affirmative action was good.. in theory. But now idiot politicians, judges with brain damage and clueless juries have turned it into this roving beast of a concept.
I remember reading an article where a guy of Latino decent applied for a job at a place that manufactured manufactured-homes. He was told that there were no openings at that time. The applicant sued, claimed he was discriminated on grounds of his being Latino. Won 2.2 million dollars. There were only a few problems. First of all, there were no openings. Secondly, over 80% of the workforce there were Latino as this was in a high Latino populated area. Affirmative action destroyed that business. Now over 120 people, many of them Latino, are out of a job. Wasn't AA designed to ensure people were able to work?
staff04 (anonymous) says…
Because the law degree he wouldn't have received otherwise would have been SO valuable...
kansas778 (anonymous) says…
Ever since affirmative racism was implemented, every disparity has increased, not decreased. Minorities should take AA back to the dems and ask for a refund because they've been sold a defective product.
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (anonymous) says…
Yea, they were so much better off with Jim Crow, k778.
ctrmhero (anonymous) says…
Perhaps because the education that justice Thomas received was only worth 15 cents to him explains how badly he missed the point in life and on the bench. I guess when Thurgood Marshal experienced the same reaction when he graduated from law school is to be blamed on affirmative action. Oh my bad he finished law school at least twenty years before aa.
kansas778 (anonymous) says…
bozo--and who said they were?
imastinker (anonymous) says…
How does someone think that an employer, who is looking for the best person for the job (but doesn't care about race) could think that a university who takes people based on race and not performance would be as desireable as one that does not.
kugrad (anonymous) says…
It is ironic that Thomas does not feel his skin color helped him land his Supreme Court nomination as well. Granted his extremism helped. Maybe he should do us all a favor and resign? I suspect he went to a lot of interviews because he was not an impressive candidate. This is a man who, right here in Lawrence, once stated that his judgements are based on "a higher authority than the constitution," by which he meant the Bible/God (read: Clarence Thomas' interpretation of the Bible). This statement alone should be cause to remove him from the bench, as he clearly does not understand how essential it is to our nation that a Supreme Court justice answer to NO higher authority than the constitution that he took an oath to uphold.
Clarence Thomas is a national embarrassment and a threat to our system of justice.
BTW, before the extremist non-thinkers accuse me of being racist, let me point out that I am pointing out the irony in Thomas' own words. I know it won't stop some of you who cannot name a black leader beyond Al Sharpton or Jessie Jackson.
imastinker (anonymous) says…
WOW - now people think we can't have religious people in our government. That's a new twist to the seperation of church and state. Is this what's next?
scott3460 (anonymous) says…
Kansas778 wrote: "Ever since affirmative racism was implemented, every disparity has increased, not decreased."
A statement which is demonstratably untrue and but one of a seemingly endless string of untruths uttered by this individual.
kugrad (anonymous) says…
Urastinker,
Obviously, I did not say we can't have religious people in our government. It is disingenuous of you to try to put those words in my mouth. What I DID say, is that a Supreme Court Justice takes an oath to uphold the constitution. The constitution is the final authority in the LAW, not a God they believe in, not their own interpretation of what that God wishes the constitution says. As it says in the Bible, you cannot serve 2 masters. The job of the Supreme Court is to interpret the LAW, not the Bible.
If you can't understand that simple distinction then you are functionally illiterate.
imastinker (anonymous) says…
You are still saying that he cannot uphold the constitution while believing in the bible.
kansas778 (anonymous) says…
scott3460 (Anonymous) says:
Kansas778 wrote: "Ever since affirmative racism was implemented, every disparity has increased, not decreased."
A statement which is demonstratably untrue and but one of a seemingly endless string of untruths uttered by this individual.
-----------------------------------------------
Oh yeah Scotty? Can you back that up, because I know I can:
William A. Darity, Jr. and Samuel L. Myers, Jr., Persistent Disparity: Race and Economic Inequality in the United States since 1945. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1998.
Contents: 1. The Widening Gap Increasing Interracial and Intraracial Inequality 2. General Inequality in American Society and the Widening of the Gap within Races 3. Inequality and the Widening Gap between the Races 4. Education and Earnings Inequality among Family Heads 5. Family Structure, Labour Force Participation and Earnings Inequality 6. Forecasts and Prospects 7. Remedies for Racial Economic Inequality 8. Conclusions and Policy Directions
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancis...
Title of the article: "S.F. wages are rising, but racial income disparity is also"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
Title: "Persistent Race Disparities Found Minorities Still Lag in Income, Education, Census Data Show" Excerpt: "Decades after the civil rights movement, racial disparities in income, education and home ownership persist and, by some measurements, are growing."
http://www.cdc.gov/omh/AboutUs/dispar...
Excerpt on infant mortality: "African-American, American Indian, and Puerto Rican infants have higher death rates than white infants. In 2000, the black-to-white ratio in infant mortality was 2.5 (up from 2.4 in 1998). This widening disparity between black and white infants is a trend that has persisted over the last two decades."
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?a...
Title: "MLK Day Report Shows Greater Disparity Between Black and White"
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article...
Title: "Home buying racial gap is widening. New census data show whites more likely to own their houses"
http://stanfordreview.org/Archive/Vol...
A stanford review article debunking any suggested positive effects of Affirmative Racism
http://my.brandeis.edu/news/item?news...
Title: "Census figures point to climbing racial disparities"
http://www.hhh.umn.edu/img/assets/968...
Title: "The Relative Decline in Black Family Incomes during the 1990s"
Do I need to go on? Or is this enough to demonstratably show my claim? What a coward you are, to come on here and say that my statements are "demonstratably untrue" and then provide one shred of evidence.
kansas778 (anonymous) says…
and then *NOT* provide one shred of evidence
denak (anonymous) says…
Does anyone know in what percentile Thomas graduated law school? If you are in the top 5% of your class, it doesn't matter if you are white, black, going to Yale or some other school, you are going to get interviews and a job soon after law school. Now, if you are in the lowest 5%, it doesn't matter if there is Affirmative Action or if you went to Yale or if you are White or Black or whatever,your not going to get hired.
Ranking is everything.
As far as Thomas is concerned, I don't care one way or the other that he is conservative or black or anything else. He has never struck me as a brilliant legal mind but I'm sure there has been worst. However, I don't think this book is really helping his public image. First of all, I really don't know why he is writing the book NOW. Also, he just seems bitter. Isn't there anything this man is happy about? It just seems like all he is doing is whinning. "I'm a victim" "I'm a victim of Anita Hill" "I'm a victim of Affirmative Action."
I mean get over it already. You are sitting on the freaking United States Supreme Court. Does he not understand what rareified company he is in. That would boggle the minds of most people.
Dena
pace (anonymous) says…
old whiney hot hands Clarence Thomas continues to bitch about his life. He is lucky but all we hear is his woe. He is such a pawn.
kugrad (anonymous) says…
No, Imastinker, I am saying that you are unable to make a simple distinction. I'm saying that his job is to uphold the constitution and not to uphold his personal religious beliefs. I am a Christian, that does not mean that I want Clarence Thomas interpreting what my beliefs should be and then using his Christian beliefs, rather than the constitution and the law, to establish legal precedents.
BTW, the religion is called "Christianity," not "Bibleanity." This is because Christians worship the Holy Trinity, not the Bible. One does not "believe in the Bible" as you say, one believes in God.
kansas778 (anonymous) says…
observar (Anonymous) says:
And also Thomas is another reason W was selected for pres. What a f''king example that is of his incompetence.
___________________________________
What an example of your ignorance. See my comment on the 2000 election case at:
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/oct...
imastinker (anonymous) says…
KUgrad -
That's not what you said. Did you forget already? Here it is:
"This is a man who, right here in Lawrence, once stated that his judgements are based on "a higher authority than the constitution," by which he meant the Bible/God (read: Clarence Thomas' interpretation of the Bible). This statement alone should be cause to remove him from the bench, as he clearly does not understand how essential it is to our nation that a Supreme Court justice answer to NO higher authority than the constitution that he took an oath to uphold."
Why can he not believe in God and uphold the constitution?
dirkleisure (anonymous) says…
As with the majority of Mr. Thomas' written opinions, rare though they have been, his entire premise is flawed.
As many of the fascist right posters on this board prove on a daily basis, you can argue any point you want. The problem is when, as in this case, your point is without merit to begin with.
Every man is entitled his opinion. As they say, opinions are like a**holes.
It is an embarassment to our democracy that Mr. Thomas' a**hole posesses such an incredible value.
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (anonymous) says…
"Do I need to go on? Or is this enough to demonstratably show my claim?"
You haven't shown anything. Sure, affirmative action hasn't fixed everything, but the the Reagan Revolution's class warfare (accelerated under the Bushies) might have something to do with that, don't you think?
scott3460 (anonymous) says…
Kansas778:
Let's see, there is the obvious decrease in the disparity between the total number of black and white college graduates which has decreased since affirmative action was implemented at untold universities across the country. Same thing for increased numbers of doctors and lawyers and other professions when you compare the pre-affirmative action era and the modern time. Same for the sheer numbers of minority individuals in the middle or upper income classes when comparing the two era. The numbers of federal contracts awarded to minority owned firms as a result of affirmative action policies, etc. Or, maybe you only have to look at the US military, where affirmative action first started and has so clearly done what it is supposed to do.
Most of the studies or articles you have cited only refer to a widening of the disparity that has taken place very recently, mostly as a result of the deliberate policy choices of a republican controlled Congress and the current criminal serving as President. (Hardly a surprise there. There is a reason, after all, minorities have historically shunned the GOP.) None of your citations stand for the proposition that there has been no decrease in the disparity since affirmative action. For God's sake, one of them is an opinion piece. About as persuasive as...well, one of your stupid postings.
If affirmative action is so ineffective, why do you right wingers want so, so badly to be done with it?
dorothyhr (Dorothy Hoyt-Reed) says…
Years ago, I was hired at a factory in Ottawa, because they needed to hire some kind of minority. Women were included in affirmative action. If it hadn't been for that, I would have had to wait tables, because, until forced to they wouldn't have hired women. As it turns out most of the women they hired were some of their best workers. I worked there for 13 year. I was able to support my daughter and myself. We weren't rich, but we were far from being on welfare. Affirmative action gave me a job that made it possible for me to have financial independence, and save money so I could finish my education. Thomas doesn't realize that he would have never been given a chance to prove himself if it hadn't been for affirmative action.
kugrad (anonymous) says…
imastinker,
You apparently have zero reading comprehension skills. perhaps you are simply a troll who is trying to be annoying? At any rate, Thomas' job is to uphold the constitution. Not to uphold the Bible. That does not mean he cannot be a Christian, words you would like to put in my mouth, but cannot. It does mean that Christians who serve in government are not free to place their religious beliefs over the laws that they swear (on the Bible I might add) to uphold. Thomas cannot place his god over the constitution.
I think you do, in fact, understand the distinction and you are just a jerk. However, if you really don't get it, then you are truly among the functional illiterate I am sorry to say.
kansas778 (anonymous) says…
Scott: "Let's see, there is the obvious decrease in the disparity between the total number of black and white college graduates which has decreased since affirmative action was implemented at untold universities across the country. Same thing for increased numbers of doctors and lawyers and other professions when you compare the pre-affirmative action era and the modern time. Same for the sheer numbers of minority individuals in the middle or upper income classes when comparing the two era. The numbers of federal contracts awarded to minority owned firms as a result of affirmative action policies, etc. Or, maybe you only have to look at the US military, where affirmative action first started and has so clearly done what it is supposed to do."
Well gee, isn't that a nice little band-aid? Hey, as long as there are some more minority doctors and lawyers, that makes up for the millions that are unemployed right? What a tool. Why don't you come out to the East coast, to DC or Philadelphia, and go to the bad side of town to look and see how many doctors and lawyers there are. You can tell the people that there are more minorities in the upper class, I'm sure they'll be glad to hear it.
Scott: "Most of the studies or articles you have cited only refer to a widening of the disparity that has taken place very recently." Even though I provided sources covering a multitude of time periods, from the short term to the long term, I guess if I don't give one that goes from exactly 1961 to present you won't like it. Well Scotty, every single source I provided covers the a portion or all of the time period in question, and they all point to widening disparities. You have not cited one source that shows any closing of disparities, and only claimed that there are more token minorities in visible positions, completly ignoring the growing number of those unemployed and living on The Dole.
Scott: "None of your citations stand for the proposition that there has been no decrease in the disparity since affirmative action." I love it! If I had provided links to Fox News and National Review Online, you would say they were bogus because they were all politically biased. I provide (mostly) apolitical sources (as to AA) and you claim because they offer no conclusions directly about AA that they should be ignored? Hilarious! I guess you would trust political articles from Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity since they actually come to a politically relevant conclusion. I did have a primary source "Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy" by Thomas Sowell, which offered facts, reasoning, and conclusions on this issue, but it was exchanged to a liberal colleague who never returned it (even though I returned his book) so I cannot quote directly from it. However, if you want source that not only supports the conclusion but also "stands" for it as well, then that is it.
kansas778 (anonymous) says…
Scott: "If affirmative action is so ineffective, why do you right wingers want so, so badly to be done with it?"
This may be a shock to you Scott: you're a prejudiced bigot. You can't imagine why conservatives would want to do away with such a damaging policy against minorities because you think all conservatives are racists and sexists. Once you get rid of your prejudices, you might figure out the answer to this question on your own.
denak (anonymous) says…
I wonder how many people realize that white males reap the benefits of affirmative action. White women are the number one beneficiaries of affirmative action and since most people still marry within their race, that means, that white men are reaping the benefits of affirmative action more than any other catagory of male. Look it up? Do something as simple as google "which minority group benefits the most from affimative action?"
So all you white guys out there who whine about the non existant jobs that you supposedly lost to some underqualified minority, go whine to your wife and make sure she knows that her success in life is due only to affimative action and not her hard work.
I'm sure she will appreciate it!
Dena
kansas778 (anonymous) says…
dena: "I wonder how many people realize that white males reap the benefits of affirmative action."
Actually everyone loses because of AA policies: "They reduce the incentives of both the preferred and non-preferred to perform at their best - the former because doing so is unnecessary and the latter because it can prove futile - thereby resulting in net losses for society as a whole."
From: Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study by Thomas Sowell.