Comments on: Justice Thomas at University of Florida

By: John Herbison

John Herbison — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 07:30:10 +0000

I did not view the entire video, but when Justice Thomas spoke of ascertaining what the drafters of a constitutional provision meant, I wondered whether he regards Bolling v. Sharpe as having been wrongly decided. I seriously doubt that the eighteenth century drafters of the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause would have had any problem with de jure segregation in the District of Columbia.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:25:18 +0000

I second JohnF.

By: JohnF

JohnF — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:08:15 +0000

One has to be struck by his decency, intelligence and caring. A great man.

By: pedro

pedro — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:18:28 +0000

Go Gators!

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:08:03 +0000

Nelson Lund will doubtless welcome Justice Thomas’s endorsement of circuit-riding, provided it can be done by RV rather than horseback. Pity the horse! My own size has benefitted from doing all my own cooking, and being a lousy cook.

By: Pendulum

Pendulum — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:41:53 +0000

I believe the actual quote was “for God’s sake, he went to Ohio State.”

By: Drib

Drib — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:10:11 +0000

LTR: I’ll never forget Scalia talking about Jeffrey Sutton: “He was one of my best clerks although he went to Ohio State”. It sounded like baseball coach saying: “He was a great defensive shortstop although he weighted 300 pounds and had a leg amputated due to diabetes”.

Boooo.

By: Mark Field

Mark Field — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:09:24 +0000

Brian Tamanaha has some comments here.

By: LTR

LTR — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:36:03 +0000

I’ll never forget Scalia talking about Jeffrey Sutton: “He was one of my best clerks although he went to Ohio State”. It sounded like baseball coach saying: “He was a great defensive shortstop although he weighted 300 pounds and had a leg amputated due to diabetes”.

Good to see Thomas resists the U.S. News rankings snobbery that seems to be dominant in law profession.

By: Justice Thomas at University of Florida | Liberal Whoppers

Justice Thomas at University of Florida | Liberal Whoppers — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:27:08 +0000

[...] more here: Justice Thomas at University of Florida [...]

By: Nels

Nels — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 08:21:02 +0000

Mike, I interpreted that as him saying that when systems are fair, giving everyone an opportunity, there will naturally be diversity in the judiciary. He does seem to be agreeing that confidence in the judiciary is to some degree tied to people seeing judges up there that look like them.

By: Mike McDougal

Mike McDougal — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:23:24 +0000

Around 1:14:45 Thomas talks diversity in the judiciary. I’m not sure whether he’s saying society has become more accepting, allowing greater diversity or whether he’s tepidly supporting something like affirmative action. I suspect it’s more of the former, but it wasn’t quite the answer I expected to hear.

By: Mike McDougal

Mike McDougal — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 06:41:27 +0000

The key part of the speech is where he refers to TTT students. See here and here. As for the more substantive point, I wonder if there's a good way of comparing the output quality of Thomas's clerks versus those of the other justices.