Clarence Thomas Fans Launch Website Touting His Legacy

Former law clerks and other fans of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas launched JusticeThomas.com, a website dedicated to his jurisprudence. His supporters seek to recast his legacy as “a fearless originalist,” according to Randy Barnett, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University Law Center. “He elevates the original meaning of the text above precedent. In other words, he puts the founders above dead justices.” Thomas is widely known for his controversial confirmation hearings, in which his former colleague Anita Hill said Thomas sexually harassed her. “Thomas has had this bull’s-eye on his back his entire career,” Mark Paoletta, a former assistant White House counsel with George H. W. Bush, told USA Today. “I don’t think he’s gotten enough credit. … So many of the stories about him are negative.” Neomi Rao, a former clerk for Thomas who now directs the Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, said: “I do think in some ways Justice Thomas is a more thoroughgoing originalist than Justice Scalia was. Justice Thomas is more willing to go back and overturn precedents, to go back and find the original meaning of the Constitution.” Thomas, who will celebrate 26 years on the Court this term, was appointed to the bench at 43, and would be the longest-serving justice in history before turning 80.