I figured it would take quite a bit to get me out of my workload induced exile from blogging but it only took a four column article in the other day’s Houston Chronicle for me to be unable to contain myself.
So the Hon. Clarence Thomas, one of conservative Fab Four in the Supreme Court in his book, My Grandfather’s Son, seems to think that Yale did him a disservice by letting him in to its law school via its affirmative action program. The icing on the cake or rather the spit in the face of Yale is that he stores his degree in his basement with a 15-cent sticker from a cigar package on the frame.
A quote from the article is rather revealing:
“I’d graduated from one of America’s top law schools but racial preference had robbed my achievement of its true value.”
I’m sorry Justice Thomas but I don’t buy your logic. It’s one thing to suggest that you might not have gotten into Yale if you weren’t black, casting aspersion on your own academics but it’s another thing to suggest that Yale’s letting you in did you harm. Racism does the harm. Denial of opportunity does the harm. And very silly things like suggesting you’re worse off because Yale let you in and ,perhaps a poorer decision on their part, let you out, suggests that the prejudice that preceeded you was correct.
In the words of Lady MacBeth, Fie! Justice Thomas Fie!
I would urge J. Thomas to reconsider his position because someone who was head of the EEOC and now a member of the Supreme Court cannot in all truth be said to be harmed. What’s that in Constitutional Law? To have standing the plaintiff must demonstrate an injury. I see no injury here to Justice Thomas. I do however see an injury, a tarnish, on a hardworking Grandfather’s repute because of the ills of a prodigal son.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/5233265.html
P.S.: I suppose there goes one vote, if I ever go up for appeal to the Supreme Court.
