Why is clarence thomas against affirmative action

Supreme Court is poised to hand down yet another landmark decision on an affirmative action case. The case is the lawsuit by white student Abigail Noel Fisher against the University of Texas at Austin in which she claims that race was a primary reason she was rejected for admission. The justices will rule in the coming days on the use of race in college admissions. Many legal experts and court watchers bet that the court will once and for all scrap the last vestiges of race as a factor in school admissions and by extension in employment.

There is no bet, though, on how one judge will vote. His certain vote to uphold Fisher's case and dump race into the dustbin of legal and social history is so sure it can almost be mailed in. Thomas loudly told the world what he thought of affirmative action six years ago in his memoir, My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir by Clarence Thomas. Here are his words:. I thought that was nonsense. When Thomas casts his inevitable vote to expunge affirmative action, the one question that will and should be eternally asked of him is how and why someone who has been the biggest beneficiary of affirmative action could be the biggest hypocrite in opposing it.

First, there's the reminder of how much he's benefited. Despite his mediocre political credentials and undistinguished academic record, Thomas rose from junior Senate aide to Supreme Court justice in less than a decade.

Here's the parade of plum positions that he got: assistant secretary of Education for civil rights, chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission EEOC , an appointment to the federal judiciary, and of course, Supreme Court judge. His quick rise up the political and legal ladder was all preceded by his race based admission to Yale Law School. In his memoir, Thomas protests that he never actively sought these spots and pretends that he didn't want them because of his deep fear that he would be permanently tarred as an affirmative action hire.

But no one twisted Thomas's arm or put a knife to his throat and demanded that he accept any of these positions including admission to Yale Law School. He had a mouth and he could have opened it and said no every time he was offered a professional leg up. He didn't. If Thomas had just taken the plums served up to him, and quietly melted into the woodwork with his titles, it would have been harmless enough.

But he had a bigger agenda in mind, and that was to be an aggressive and relentless foe of the very affirmative action measures that he milked. The Supreme Court post gave him the ideal power position to advance his agenda and do real damage. The pounding he took during his High Court confirmation fight in from civil rights, civil liberties and women's groups, and the narrow Senate vote to confirm him stung deeply.

Thomas didn't forget or forgive. In fact, when asked how long he'd stay on the court, he reportedly said that he'd stay there for the next 43 years of his life. He was 43 at the time. I have never thought of Thomas as a good man and never cared if he was misunderstood. I could give a shit if he is a good husband and father. I understood him perfectly. Whenever opponents of affirmative action claimed unqualified Blacks were being given opportunities based on their color and not their qualifications, I gleefully pointed to Thomas as all the proof they would ever need.

There are few Black Americans who have benefited more and advanced further by way of affirmative action than Clarence Thomas. His entire career is a testament to a man of mediocre credentials and limited vision rising to a position of power based on his ability to ingratiate, flatter and insinuate himself into the patronage of affluent and well-connected White patrons.

The day that George H. Thomas is a affirmative action baby. Nowhere else would he have been elevated so far and so fast based on his minimal talents, skills and abilities. Thomas may be right that affirmative action sends people into places they cannot excel. He is the living proof of that assertion and every day he stays on the Supreme Court makes it only more obvious.