Clarence Thomas

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• SOURCE: Slate
  6/20/2023
  

  Clarence Thomas Took a Swipe at My Dissertation Research in a Decision. Here's Why He's Wrong

  by Gregory Ablavsky

  Historians' work played a huge role in a recent decision affecting Native American children. But the dissent by Clarence Thomas showed an appalling willingness to cherry-pick from the past that undermines originalism's own claims to legitimacy. 

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• 5/28/2023
  

  The Modern Relics in Crow's Cabinet of Curiosities

  by Matthew Dennis

  Understanding Harlan Crow's collection, including Nazi memorabilia, as a set of relics (and not trophies or investments) helps to clarify the unease Americans feel about his understanding of power and cultivation of relationships with people of influence over the federal judiciary.

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  5/18/2023
  

  Conservatives Hate Tenure (Except for Clarence Thomas)

  by Tom Nichols

  Right-wing politicians with Ivy League degrees are eager to attack tenure at public institutions for political gain, but won't abide questions about Clarence Thomas's integrity.

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• SOURCE: WNYC
  5/18/2023
  

  What Does Clarence Thomas Think Clarence Thomas is Doing?

  A panel of scholars and journalists examine a paradox: how Clarence Thomas went from embracing the tenets of Black Nationalism to an administrative and judicial career that most characterize as hostile to the rights of Black Americans. 

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• SOURCE: Politico
  4/18/2023
  

  The Scandal isn't in Clarence Thomas's Corruption, but His Jurisprudence

  by Corey Robin

  It's a mistake to ask if receiving gifts from a wealthy benefactor has shaped the Justice's rulings. His rulings have paved the way for the power of money in America. 

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• SOURCE: Slate
  2/15/2023
  

  We Don't Need to Pretend Clarence Thomas Can Read the Founders' Minds

  by Heidi Li Feldman and Dahlia Lithwick

  The approach to "original intent" laid out in recent gun control rulings imagines the founders as capable only of the most cramped and limited understanding of the function of law in a society, argue a legal scholar and veteran court reporter. 

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• SOURCE: Dissent
  1/11/2023
  

  Margaret Sanger's Ghost and the Antiabortion Movement

  by Melinda Cooper

  The anti-abortion right's invocation of eugenics in the Dobbs case and in their public rhetoric might seem cynical. But it could be effective, unless the history of Sanger's relationship to eugenics and reproductive freedom is better understood. 

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• SOURCE: New Books Network
  8/4/2022
  

  Corey Robin on the Enigma of Clarence Thomas

  The political scientist's 2019 biography of the Justice comes in for new attention with Thomas's controversial judicial opinions (and the alleged actions of his wife on January 6). 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  7/20/2022
  

  Originalism is Just Selective History

  by David H. Gans

  "This is a Court that insists it is following history and tradition where they lead, while cherry-picking the history it cares about to reach conservative results."

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• SOURCE: Politico
  6/26/2022
  

  On the Historical Dilettantes Practicing Originalism

  by Joshua Zeitz

  "The functional problem with originalism is that it requires a very, very firm grasp of history — a grasp that none of the nine justices, and certainly few of their 20-something law clerks, freshly minted from J.D. programs, possess."

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• SOURCE: Slate
  6/24/2022
  

  Thomas's Guns Opinion is Ahistorical and Anti-Originalist

  by Saul Cornell

  "Ultimately, the majority opinion in NYSRPA v. Bruen is one of the most intellectually dishonest and poorly argued decisions in American judicial history."

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  6/23/2022
  

  Adam Winkler on Thomas's Historical Cherry-Picking on Gun Rights

  Isaac Chotiner interviews law professor and legal historian Adam Winkler on the selective use of history in the New York state gun rights decision. 

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• SOURCE: Rolling Stone
  3/27/2022
  

  Historian Jeff Shesol: Ginni Thomas's 1/6 Involvement Poses Unprecedented Crisis for Court's Legitimacy

  "In a very real sense, Clarence and Ginni Thomas are answerable only to Clarence and Ginni Thomas. The Trump Administration gave us all a hard lesson in how few actual rules bind the behavior of our national leaders."

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/13/19
  

  Clarence Thomas says a Smithsonian exhibit about him is wrong. (It’s not.)

  This is the second time the museum has come under fire for its treatment of the second African American member of the Supreme Court. 

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• SOURCE: Salon
  5/31/2019
  

  Historians call Clarence Thomas’ anti-abortion argument, "A gross misuse of historical facts"

  “Linking the pro-choice movement to racism . . . He’s a bad man,” Georgia State law professor Eric Segall says

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  5/29/2019
  

  Adam Cohen: Clarence Thomas Knows Nothing of My Work

  by Adam Cohen

  The justice used my book to tie abortion to eugenics. But his rendition of the history is incorrect.

• 
• SOURCE: Business Insider
  9-3-18
  

  Republican Sen. Ben Sasse (a historian) drops a bombshell on the debate over Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court

  "I urged the president to nominate a different individual," Sasse said. "I urged the president to nominate a woman."

• 
• SOURCE: The Washington Post
  10-2-18
  

  How the FBI’s flawed investigation of Clarence Thomas became a model for Kavanaugh’s

  And why it shouldn't.  For one thing, the FBI never talked to — or even knew to look for — four potential witnesses who had knowledge of Anita Hill’s complaints about Thomas.

• 
• SOURCE: The Washington Post
  9-25-18
  

  What happens when women talk to Congress about sex

  by Kimberly A. Hamlin

  They’re repeatedly ignored.

• 
• SOURCE: The Washington Post
  9-25-18
  

  "A high-tech lynching"

  How Clarence Thomas’s fury saved his Supreme Court nomination