OPINION: The justice’s ‘originalist’ judicial philosophy and conservative worldview fit perfectly with the ideas expressed in the Dobbs draft overturning Roe v. Wade, which could open the door to overruling other landmark cases such as Loving v. Virginia, which made interracial marriage legal.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more , written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh of all people, the court found that the prosecutor’s “relentless effort to rid the jury of black individuals” was both “blatant” and “extraordinary.”
Thomas, on the other hand, seemed especially engaged—on behalf of the prosecutor. He wrote an usually lengthy 42-page dissent in which he not only defended the prosecutor’s tactics but argued that they gave “race-neutral” excuses for dismissing the jurors, even though the evidence showed they had struck 41 of 42 potential Black jurors while accepting 71 white jurors instead.
Perhaps Thomas’ position should not have come as a surprise. He is now arguably the most conservative justice currently sitting on the court. And yet, he hasn’t been shy about the subject of race. He has spoken often and eloquently about his modest upbringing and called the state-enforced segregation he endured “as close to totalitarianism as I would like to get.” He became a self-described “angry black man” who admired Malcolm X so much that he memorized passages of his speeches.
However, his professed affinity for Black power politics was coupled with a healthy resentment and distrust of white liberals, which later metastasized into a contempt for the civil rights laws they championed. Thomas would come around to embrace interracial marriage, but he would remain a lifelong skeptic about integration, finally settling on the bleak conclusion that racial inequality “cannot be solved by law…”
And yet, at some point, even Thomas must realize that the court’s overreach into the private lives of everyday Americans—particularly women and people of color—could come for him, too. After all, he and his wife reportedly live in Virginia, one of the states, at least in the 1960s, that was fighting desperately to preserve a ban on interracial marriage.
Thomas has demonstrated fidelity to a strict “originalist” judicial philosophy, which essentially means he believes the nation’s Constitution should be interpreted only as it was intended upon its conception. That might sound eminently reasonable if not for the fact that the exclusively land-owning (and in many cases, slave-owning) white men who wrote that document almost certainly did not have marriages like Thomas’ in mind when they wrote it.
These men also didn’t account for LGBTQ people or abortion. In fact, they didn’t account for women at all—which is pretty wild when we’re talking about half of the human race. And yet Thomas and Alito would have you believe that these men knew better than not just you or me, but any modern woman, about what they have the right to do with their bodies.
I have no doubt that Justice Thomas loves and reveres his wife. Not only has he referred to her gushingly as his “best friend,” but he has stood by her amid major recent revelations about her active role in perpetuating an attempted coup for the presidency—a scandal that has led to calls for his recusal from all January 6 related cases, and even for his resignation.
But will his humanity trump his commitment to manifesting his arcane worldview? So much of what he and the far-right conservative moment that champions him have fought for has already come to pass. Meanwhile, the country has been about as gerrymandered as it can be. Two of the last four presidents won office without even winning the popular vote. Those presidents selected five of the sitting members of the Supreme Court, who all enjoy lifetime appointments and more or less regulate themselves. And those justices appear poised to exacerbate the gap between the privileged and the poor, the corporate and the consumer.
And yet, some of these decisions can and will affect all of our lives.
Just like how COVID and climate change have no party affiliation and don’t distinguish a blue state from a red one, the revoking of bodily autonomy for millions of American women will have an unavoidable impact on people far and wide, maybe even those who don’t know it yet.
But can a man like Clarence Thomas see that or feel that? He hasn’t said.
Adam Howard is a senior associate producer for “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” and a producer on the “Full Release with Samantha Bee” podcast. He has written about pop culture, sports and politics for The Daily Beast, Playboy, and NBC News and has recently curated an exhibition of the history of blaxploitation for the Poster House museum in New York City.
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