Supreme Court of the United States
Clarence Thomas
Associate Justice
Biography
Clarence Thomas is an American lawyer and jurist who has served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1991. Nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court and the second longest-serving U.S. Supreme Court justice in history.
Source: Wikipedia
Education & Career
Undergraduate
College of the Holy Cross, A.B. in English Literature (1971)
Law School
Yale Law School, J.D. (1974)
Prior Roles
- —Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1990–1991)
- —Chairman, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1982–1990)
- —Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights (1981–1982)
Judicial Philosophy
Thomas is a committed originalist and textualist who interprets the Constitution according to its original public meaning at ratification. He has been willing to reconsider prior precedents he views as incorrectly decided, even long-standing ones.
Notable Opinions
McDonald v. City of Chicago
2010
Agreed that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments, but argued the right should be grounded in the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause rather than the Due Process Clause as the plurality held.
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization
2022
Joined the majority overruling Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and separately called for reconsideration of other substantive due process precedents including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.
NetChoice v. Paxton
2024
Argued for reconsidering the Court's First Amendment framework as applied to social media platforms, questioning whether the editorial discretion doctrine should extend to algorithmic content curation.