Texas senator Ted Cruz petitioned the Smithsonian Institution Monday to correct what he called its “mistake [of] omitting the enormous legacy and impact of Justice Thomas” at the new National Museum of African American History and Culture.
The museum has received criticism for allegedly slighting the nation’s second African American justice, who is referred to inside the building only in passing—and in the context of Anita Hill, who accused Thomas of sexual harassment during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings twenty-five years ago.
“As much as I am grateful for the museum and its efforts to preserve and promote the indispensable, yet oft-neglected, contributions of African Americans to the collective history of our nation, I believe the museum has made a mistake by omitting the enormous legacy and impact of Justice Thomas, as well as his compelling background,” Cruz wrote.
The former Supreme Court clerk suggested that Thomas be featured more prominently alongside former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first African American on the High Court. Marshall also takes up little space in the museum.
“After all, in 240 years, only three African Americans have served at the highest level of the executive or judicial branches of our great country—Justice Marshall, Justice Thomas, and President Barack Obama. President Obama has a large presence in the museum, so it would be appropriate to also examine Justices Marshall and Thomas,” Cruz observed. He said Thomas could be featured in an existing exhibit called “Making a Way Out of No Way”—something his colleague and Thomas’s fellow Southerner, Senator Tim Scott, called for earlier this month.
“While Justice Thomas and I do not share the same keen mastery of constitutional law, I can identify to some degree, with some of the inherent stereotypes and personal obstacles that Justice Thomas overcame to reach the pinnacle of his profession,” Scott wrote. “I can attest that, similar to Justice Thomas, as an African American man growing up in abject poverty of the Deep South, without the full arsenal of a nuclear family, and having struggled early on in school, options for my success seemed limited and role models or mentors were hard to find.”
Adam White wrote about the Thomas issue for THE WEEKLY STANDARD in October:
