Thank you, Clarence Thomas.
And thank you, George H.W. Bush.
The Supreme Court took another step toward dismantling modern America this week when it voted 6-3 to abolish the use of race-based affirmative action in college admissions. And of course one of the six votes was Thomas, rapidly climbing the list of the worst Supreme Court justices in history.
You remember Thomas. Long Dong Silver, pubic hairs on Coke cans and sexually harassing Anita Hill.
Thomas might just be the biggest hypocrite in public life. He has always said he hates affirmative action, although he readily admits he got his admission to Yale Law School due to affirmative action.
The problem was it made him feel bad. It made him feel like he hadn’t really earned his spot.
Of course, he didn’t reject his affirmative action admission.
It was just another reason for the whiniest person in America to whine about something else. When the court essentially reversed Roe v Wade last year, Thomas said he didn’t believe in the longtime tradition of stare decisis. He said there was no reason for a conservative court not to revisit earlier decisions on contraception or same-sex marriage.
He obviously didn’t mention Loving v Virginia, the 1967 decision that said miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. Thomas would miss Ginny, his Caucasian wife.
The problem with Thomas is that he’s so damaged emotionally from his confirmation hearings — and thank you for that, President Bush — that everyone is either his good friend or his deadly enemy. And billionaires who suck up to the court for obvious reasons have left Thomas and his wife grabbing for whatever graft they can get.
When I was at the University of Virginia in 1968, I attended a lecture by Charles Hamilton, who coauthored “Black Power” with Stokely Carmichael. After the lecture, someone asked Dr. Hamilton what he considered an insulting question.
“Would you like to be white?”
He didn’t answer the question, but I will guarantee you that if Clarence Thomas were asked that question and forced to give an honest answer, he would answer in the affirmative.
Sadly, although Thomas is thrilled to get rid of that evil affirmative action, the results may not be what he hoped. For while it seems obvious that the students hurt most by the ruling will be African-American and Latino, it isn’t going to be white kids who will benefit the most.
When my daughter Pauline graduated from one of the finest public high schools in California in 1998, she had a grade point average close to 4.0. Yet she wasn’t in the top 20 percent of her class. In fact, nearly everyone with a higher GPA than my daughter was Asian-American.
With affirmative action — also known as quotas — the competitive schools in the University of California system set limits on what percentage of Asian students would be allowed to be part of the freshman class each year.
Affirmative action meant more white kids would be admitted.
And sorry, Justice Thomas, but I’ll bet not one of those white kids thought they didn’t belong.
And you still won’t be white.