As the most senior associate justice on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has gotten to know a variety of people across the political spectrum. Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words is a documentary looking into the life of Thomas, and it is receiving a companion book with the same name. The Washington Examiner received an exclusive excerpt from the book of Thomas discussing his relationship with fellow SCOTUS justices and the special friendship he had with former Justice Antonin Scalia.
“What is your relationship like with the other justices, especially Justice Scalia?” asked Michael Pack, co-author of the book.
“They’re all wonderful people,” Justice Thomas responds. “I like them. I have warm relationships with everybody on the court and especially with my colleagues, but Justice Scalia was special in that he had been at the court about five years when I got there, when I was 43 years old and had only been a judge about a year and a half, so this was all new to me.”
Ranking second in seniority behind Chief Justice John Roberts, Thomas now fills the shoes of Scalia by being a familiar face for newer justices. “It’s very different when you’ve been here a long time,” he said. “You have warm relationships, but I’m not the new guy.”
The accusations leveled against Scalia being an “intellectual bully” are false, according to Thomas. “Unlike so many of the people that you have talked to me about that had a notion of what I should be, what I should think, he was never that way,” Thomas told Pack. “He was always fascinated by me.”
Thomas faces more and more criticism over his race and ideology as the nation waits to see whether Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturns the decision handed down in Roe v. Wade. Yet this scrutiny is not new, and the justice has faced it in the past. “Think about the people who know what I should think,” he said. “How is that different from any gross stereotype? That you’re black, therefore —. That you’re black, you should —. That you’re black, your opinion should be —. On, and on, and on.”
Thomas’s bond with Scalia was special because he refused to tie the justice’s race with his opinions. “He never did that,” Thomas said. “To him, I was entirely free to reach my own conclusions. I loved it. He was a very, very dear friend.”
Scalia died in 2016, but his friendship with Justice Thomas serves as a model for civic discourse. Thomas is the second black SCOTUS justice and the only black conservative justice in the court’s history. Scalia never let Thomas’s background muddle his views because he had the utmost respect for Thomas’s individuality. He recognized that extraordinary accomplishments entailed an extraordinary mind, and that is what interested Scalia.
The public is facing a national crisis in confidence not just in our nation’s leadership but in the ability of our fellow citizens to discuss issues of national importance. Justice Thomas and Scalia’s friendship should serve as a model for these discussions, with people discussing their ideas rather than the background of their neighbor.
James Sweet is a summer 2022 Washington Examiner fellow.
