Legal News

Thomas Strikes Ominous Tone in Weekend Speech

By Ashby Jones

In a speech on Saturday evening, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke out for the first time since the recent imbroglio concerning his attendance at a meeting of conservative donors.

His tone: defiant.

Thomas delivered the keynote speech at an annual symposium for conservative law students down in Charlottesville, Va. According to this writeup over at Politico, Thomas “spoke in vague, ominous terms about the direction of the country and urged his listeners to ‘redouble your efforts to learn about your country so that you’re in a position to defend it.’”

Indeed, it’s hard to know exactly what Justice Thomas was referring to, but he seemed to be alluding to liberal critics (though he didn’t single out any group or individual).

He continued: "You all are going to be, unfortunately, the recipients of the fallout from that – that there's going to be a day when you need these institutions to be credible and to be fully functioning to protect your liberties," he said, according to Politico.

It was the first time Thomas has spoken out about controversies that have ensnared him and his wife, Virginia Thomas. Critics have asserted that his attendance at forums sponsored by conservative groups and his wife’s political activities have, in Politico’s words, “compromised his position on the court.”

Thomas's message was not geared towards attacking critics, one attendee noted to Politico, but rather "motivating young law students to stand up for what they believe in, even if that means being reviled and having to pay a price for it."

Thomas also warned in dire terms about the Supreme Court straying from an originalist interpretation of the Constitution. Thomas singled out the Commerce Clause as an example of an area in which the Supreme Court had lost its way.

But in the end, Thomas returned to the theme that something big and threatening is on its way.

"And what I think is important for you all, is that when you see people standing in defense of what's right, that you make sure that your voice is not remembered as one of the silent," Thomas said.

"Because there's gonna be a day when you're gonna look around and you're gonna look at your kids and your grandkids and they're gonna ask you a question: What happened to the great country that was here when you grew up, and why isn't it here now, and what did you do?"

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 28, 2011 (boomark / email).