Clarence Thomas got to the Supreme Court the hard way
In his Die Hard movies, Bruce Willis as John McClain goes from one impossible situation to another and manages to survive against all odds, maintaining his wits no matter how many madmen come his way.
Justice Clarence Thomas, who spoke in Dallas last week about his new memoir My Grandfather's Son, came across as a real-life version of John McClain.
Early abandonment by his father caused his mother to turn Clarence and his brother over to his ferocious mentor-grandfather. The taught them always to stand up for their principles. But he also worked them from dawn till dusk, essentially prohibited play time, and kicked Clarence out of the home when he quit pre-seminary school at the age of 16.
Always a good student, Clarence faced constant crises in his educational journey. In the racially turbulent '60s, he was the only black at his Georgia parochial high school and one of six African-Americans when he started college at Holy Cross.
At both schools, he suffered a slew of slurs, causing Thomas' anger to spiral until he had an epiphany -- "If I was to change the world, I would have to change myself, and find a way to chain the beast of rage and resentment. Doing well in school was my only hope."Thomas did so well at Holy Cross, he was admitted to Yale Law School. Thomas told the Dallas crowd, "The value of a Yale law degree when it bore the taint of racial preference was 15 cents." He now keeps his diploma in the basement of his home.
Soon after moving to Washington, where he served at the Department of Education, then as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Thomas spoke publicly about his opposition to welfare assistance and busing to achieve school integration, believing both did more harm than good.
Because of those beliefs he soon joined the Republican Party and thereby became a pariah to white liberals, media pundits, and most African-Americans employed on Capitol Hill. So when President Bush nominated him to the Supreme Court, these enemies pulled out all stops to block his confirmation.
"Got any dirt on Clarence Thomas?" they asked everybody he had ever known. His FBI investigation came through clean, public figures who knew Thomas confirmed his spotless reputation, and Thomas' confirmation seemed eminent -- until Anita Hill stepped forward.
Ms. Hill had worked under Thomas at the Department of Education and then (at her request) followed him to the EEOC where she stayed until Thomas refused to promote her because of poor work performance.
Though she had never previously raised a complaint against him -- and had often called him asking for favors after leaving D.C. -- Hill's public testimony suddenly became crucial to Judiciary Committee Democrats.
What she said about his allegedly having made sexually inappropriate comments in her presence was never corroborated by anyone who had worked with her at the time.
At the end of the confirmation hearings, Thomas told the Judiciary Committee they had given him a "high-tech lynching." As he writes in his book, "I was being pursued not by bigots in white robes but by left-wing zealots draped in flowing sanctimony."
Like John McClain, Clarence Thomas has survived all challenges. He told the Dallas crowd he wrote his book "to set the record straight and provide information for others about his life story that might be useful."
In fact, his capacity to survive and prevail through a lifetime of potentially destructive circumstances is a testament to all who aspire to "have the wisdom to know what's right and the courage to do it."