A few weeks back, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke at the annual banquet of the Bill of Rights Institute honoring the national winners of the “Being and American” essay contest. A full description of the contest and a listing of the winner is here. C-Span broadcast his remarks last night, but I was out of town and missed it. You can download a transcript (including the Q&A) here. I don’t know whether C-Span intends to rebroadcast the speech, but this seems like the sort of thing that it would. Juan Williams was the emcee, and his comments are quite interesting as well. After his prepared remarks, Justice Thomas took time to answer several questions from students, which provided additional insight into his thinking.
Thomas’s remarks were quite touching and personal, keeping with the theme of the banquet and essay contest on “Being an American.” He talks a great deal about his growing-up, touching on themes raised in his autobiography. He also talks a lot about the challenges and awesome responsibility of sitting on the Court.
A few excerpts that I found especially interesting (although pretty much the whole thing is interesting). In response to the question “How does your faith or your world view impact your role as a Supreme Court Justice?” Justice Thomas says:
Well first of all I don
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