ISSN 1062-7421
Vol. 12 No. 7 (July 2002) pp. 377-380

CLARENCE THOMAS: A BIOGRAPHY by Andrew Peyton Thomas. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2001. 672 pp. Cloth $29.95. ISBN: 1-893554-36-8.

Reviewed by Edward V. Heck, Department of Political Science, San Diego State University.

As Justice Clarence Thomas approaches his eleventh anniversary as a member of the Supreme Court, it is certainly time to begin the process of assessing his life and judicial career. Given the controversy surrounding his nomination, his crucial position as a member of the 5-4 conservative majority in many of the hotly-contested decisions of the Rehnquist Court, and the likelihood that he will serve on the Court for many years to come (p. 470), it is hardly surprising that several books analyzing Thomas's approach to judicial decision making (Gerber 1999, Smith & Baugh 2000, Marcosson 2002) have appeared in recent years. Although each of those books features a distinct perspective on the justice's emerging jurisprudence, Andrew Peyton Thomas's full-length biography is by far the most ambitious and comprehensive of recent books on Justice Thomas.

A graduate of Harvard Law School and a former prosecutor, biographer Thomas has produced a massive work that is thoroughly researched-including
interviews with many of Justice Thomas's family members, friends, and professional associates-and generally well documented. The book fully covers the terrain from slavery on the Georgia plantations where the justice's ancestors once toiled to Thomas's participation in the Supreme Court's decision in BUSH v. GORE (2000). I know of no comparably comprehensive biography of a sitting justice published so early in the justice's career. Writing from a clearly conservative perspective, Thomas (the author) has sketched a portrait of Thomas (the justice) that is favorable but not fawning. This biographer obviously has great respect
for Justice Thomas's professional achievements and shares his views on many issues, but does not hesitate to point out quirks and character flaws, including "a disingenuousness that sometimes seeped into dishonesty" (p. 356). Any summary of a comprehensive biography of a complex individual risks missing significant nuances, but I believe that it is possible to convey the essential story line of CLARENCE THOMAS: A BIOGRAPHY in a single paragraph.

Son of a deadbeat dad, Clarence Thomas was born into a world of debilitating poverty in the rigidly segregated Deep South of the late 1940s. Thanks to his demanding grandfather and the nuns who were his teachers in a segregated parochial school, he learned the values of honest work and academic achievement. Although a variety of factors, including the racial prejudices of some classmates, diverted him from his youthful goal of ordination to the priesthood, he earned a bachelor's degree from the College of the Holy Cross and a law degree from Yale. After brief stints in the office of the Missouri attorney general under Attorney
General John C. Danforth and as a corporate attorney for Monsanto, he

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made a crucial career decision in 1979 when he moved to the nation's capital as a legislative assistant on Danforth's Senate staff. Recognized by leading conservatives in the Reagan Administration as a rising star, he was appointed chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) at the age of 33, after gaining management experience during a brief interlude at the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in the Department of Education. During his years at EEOC, he demonstrated impressive political and administrative skills and ultimately embraced an overarching conservative ideology, which he articulated in his many speeches.
Following a year of "seasoning" on the D. C. Circuit Court, Thomas was the top choice of conservatives for the nomination to fill the Supreme Court seat of Justice Thurgood Marshall. Targeted by liberal Senate Democrats and feminists who were unwilling to tolerate a black conservative, he was subjected to grueling questioning about his beliefs, followed by false charges of sexual harassment. Although he believed that his life had been destroyed by the confirmation ordeal (p. 401), he won a close confirmation vote in the Senate thanks to his "high tech lynching" speech and strong popular support among African-Americans, particularly in the South. During his first decade on the Supreme Court, he established himself as an outspoken critic of racial preferences and took consistently conservative
positions on a wide range of issues. He was not, however, a "clone" of Justice Scalia and in fact articulated a coherent philosophy of consulting the historical record to determine the "intent of the framers" as the primary tool to guide justices in interpreting the Constitution.

There is certainly room for debate about the author's conclusions on matters of interpretation, but there is no doubt that this biography provides us with a wealth of new and relevant factual details about the justice's life and career. A reader might find the treatment of the future justice's three years at Yale a bit one-dimensional or complain about the author's reliance on interviews with a single observer for a picture of Thomas's early professional career, but these are quibbles. Moreover,
Andrew Peyton Thomas offers significant insights on how Clarence Thomas's life experiences shaped his political and jurisprudential views. Like Gerber (1999: 53-4), this biographer traces the justice's views on economic issues to the lessons he learned from his grandfather about the importance of economic self-sufficiency in a hostile world. There can be little doubt that Justice Thomas's argument that "racial paternalism and its unintended consequences can be as poisonous and pernicious as any other form of discrimination" (concurring opinion in ADARAND CONSTRUCTORS, INC. v. PENA, 1995: 241) has its roots in the justice's long-standing and deep-seated resentment of those who dismiss his own considerable achievements as attributable solely to affirmative action (pp. 178, 268). The author also marshals considerable evidence suggesting that Thomas's fascination with the writings of Thomas Sowell (pp. 161-64) gradually evolved into a
comprehensive conservative ideology, particularly after Thomas surrounded himself with conservative advisers and speech writers during his second term at the EEOC (pp. 286-91). What emerged even before his nomination for the Supreme Court was a world view that combined libertarian and traditional conservative strains in a way that neatly straddled competing schools of thought in the Reagan and Bush administrations (p. 245).

When it comes to interpretation of the Supreme Court confirmation battle and

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its effect on the justice's judicial career, however, this biography may raise more questions than it answers. Why did Thomas claim throughout the confirmation process that he had never discussed (or debated) legal issues raised by the abortion rights controversy? Why did Anita Hill ultimately come forward with detailed allegations of sexual harassment against Thomas if they had no basis in fact? To what degree can Justice Thomas's voting record be understood as a means of punishing his "enemies" and demonstrating solidarity with those who stood by him during the confirmation battle? Is his "originalist" jurisprudence anything more
than a convenient cover for a conservative voting record?

On these difficult and perhaps unanswerable questions, this biographer strives for a balanced and critical approach, but ultimately echoes the general lines of argument of Justice Thomas's strongest supporters (Brock 1993, Danforth 1994). Since several of those interviewed for the book related conversations with Thomas that touched on abortion (pp. 355-56), the author's best defense of the nominee's denial of such discussions is the assertion that Thomas's final statement was that he had never "debated" (rather than never discussed) the abortion issue. In fact, the author leaves little doubt that he considers this testimony as a prime example of a successful politician's "penchant for stretching the truth" (p. 386). Yet, this biographer accepts without reservation Thomas's flat denial of improprieties with Anita Hill. In the author's view, Hill's tale of sexual harassment cannot be credited because of what he sees as her consistent pattern of voicing allegations of discrimination and harassment to cover her professional ineptitude (p. 392) and because her Senate testimony was completely demolished by the skillful "cross-examination" of Senator Arlen Specter (p. 423). Rejected without serious consideration are the possibilities that Thomas did seek off-the-job relationships with attractive subordinates during his dating years (p. 222) and that there might have been room in his informal interactions with members of his staff for sexually-oriented jokes or off-color references to pornographic movies. In discussing the Supreme Court years, the author does give some credit to political explanations of Thomas's voting record (p. 571) and concedes the possibility that the justice's ideological positions generally reflect a desire to support the conservatives who stood by him during his Senate ordeal (p. 469). Andrew Peyton Thomas takes Clarence Thomas's "originalist" approach seriously and provides insights into how Thomas's focus on history and semantics differs from Justice Scalia's emphasis on long-established practices or "tradition," but admits that the justice
has not been entirely consistent in applying original intent analysis in major constitutional cases.

For scholars and teachers in the law and courts field, this biography has a great deal to offer on many levels. I whole-heartedly recommend this book for those who believe that the individual's background and life experiences provide the key to understanding a justice's voting record and for those who enjoy a well-written political biography. I would love to pair this book with the Juan Williams (1998) biography of Justice Marshall in a special topics course for advanced undergraduates. For those facing the task of explaining the votes and opinions of a still-young justice to an audience of skeptical (or downright hostile) students in a
constitutional law or judicial process course, this biography certainly provides a wealth of information

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and insights. If the goal is simply a basic understanding of Thomas's jurisprudence and major opinions, however, I think that the key arguments are developed more concisely and thoroughly by Gerber (1999).

REFERENCES:

Brock, David. 1993. THE REAL ANITA HILL: THE UNTOLD STORY. New York: The Free Press.

Danforth, John C. 1994. RESURRECTION: THE CONFIRMATION OF CLARENCE THOMAS. New York: Viking.

Gerber, Scott D. 1999. FIRST PRINCIPLES: THE JURISPRUDENCE OF CLARENCE THOMAS. New York: New York University Press.

Marcosson, Samuel A. 2002. ORIGINAL SIN: CLARENCE THOMAS AND THE FAILURE OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONSERVATIVES. New York: New York University Press.

Smith, Christopher E. and Joyce A. Baugh 2000. THE REAL CLARENCE THOMAS: CONFIRMATION VERACITY MEETS PERFORMANCE REALITY. New York: Peter Lang.

Williams, Juan 1998. THURGOOD MARSHALL: AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY. New York: Random House.

CASE REFERENCES:

ADARAND CONSTRUCTORS, INC v. PENA, 515 U.S. 200 (1995).

BUSH v. GORE, 121 S.Ct. 525 (2000).

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Copyright 2002 by the author, Edward V. Heck.