Attempting to understand Justice Clarence Thomas

I was upset after the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling. The decision eradicates a protected right Americans had for nearly five decades. Being a Supreme Court junkie, I reviewed every written opinion, concerned about the far-reaching consequences for other “right to privacy” issues. Every conservative Justice equivocated, save for one: Justice Clarence Thomas.

He wrote: “We should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell… we have a duty to 'correct the error' established in those precedents.”

I reached the same conclusion a year ago, when I wrote about Griswold (right to birth control access,) Lawrence (sexual freedom behind closed doors) and Obergefell (the right to marry same-sex partners) in a brief series of columns published in the Kitsap Sun. But not because I agree with Thomas. I do not. But I so see that those rulings are all predicated on the very same privacy right which justified the Roe v. Wade decision. Rights which may now be in jeopardy.

I disagree with Justice Thomas about abortion, but admire his candor. Intrigued, and wanting to know more, I read dozens of articles written about him in major magazines and newspapers and I listened to his autobiography, "My Grandfather's Son." Because most Americans know just three things about Thomas: He was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill, he rarely speaks from the bench and he is very stubborn. Christopher Landau, an appellate lawyer who clerked for Thomas summed it up best, "After 25 years, he's [Thomas] still pretty much the justice he was in year one.” I wanted to understand his reasoning.

Thomas’ life is the result of mixing self-reliance with contradiction. Abandoned by his father as a young child, he experienced extreme hunger, cold and homelessness. Yet, life with his grandfather brought Thomas adequate nourishment, a warm bed and a stable roof. Thomas attended private schools in segregated Savannah, although his schoolyard nickname was “America’s Blackest Child” (ABC,) which left an indelible sting of Black racism. Thomas learned the value of hard work from his Catholic grandfather, yet the man who raised him later turned his back on Thomas when he decided not to enter the priesthood.

More contradiction lay in wait for Thomas after enrolling at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. Finding the North more hostile to Blacks than the South and inspired by the work of the Black Panthers, Thomas fell prey to what MLK Jr. called “the hatred and despair of the black nationalist.” Thomas wrote, “The more I read about the black power movement…the more I wanted to be a part of it.” However, after rioting in Harvard Square on April 15, 1970, for the release of the Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale, violence ensued. As Thomas wandered home unharmed that night, he found himself in front of a Catholic Church, where he prayed for the first time in two years and vowed never to violently protest again.

Despite benefiting from affirmative-action — Yale law school required 10 percent of the incoming class would be students of color — he came to scorn that preferential treatment. Despite the Ivy League education, Thomas not only struggled to find a job as a lawyer, but also one that paid enough to support his family. In fact, Thomas was so poor that he and his wife couldn’t afford trips to the laundromat and hand-washed their clothes and hung them up each night. How many white Yale law graduates struggle the same way? Thomas ultimately concluded that first, his Yale Law degree was worth about 15 cents and second, racism was so tightly woven in the American fabric that the only hope for Black people lies within themselves. He held up his grandparents, who overcame the barriers of Jim Crow, as true examples of accomplishment. Thomas learned, firsthand, that the more government makes decisions for us, the less freedom we have and the less self-reliant we become. After swinging to the radical left, his political ideals, ultimately, swung hard to the right.

Which brings us to Dobbs v. Jackson. Thomas once said that inequality associated with race “cannot be solved by the law.” However, rights to birth control, abortion, sexual privacy, and marriage, can be protected by legislation. Abortion was never inalienable; it was merely sanctioned by the highest court in the land temporarily. The Dobbs v. Jackson decision is a story of defeat, because Americans cannot “win” the right to abortion, privacy, and equality in race, gender, or marriage. Only a government of the people, by the people and for the people can do that.

In truth, a coin toss in a courtroom cannot transform a democracy. The words of Justice Thomas are forewarning us: “The right to abortion is ultimately a policy goal in desperate search of a constitutional justification.”

This Supreme Court will not legislate from the bench for the foreseeable future. We must pay attention and elect leaders who are more interested in passing laws than passing judgement. Americans made a colossal mistake by relying on nine men and women to decide where our privacy rights begin and where they end. And that mistake can only be corrected through self-reliance.

It's something Justice Thomas knows all too well. And something we must learn.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Niran Al-Agba: My attempt to understand Justice Clarence Thomas