Clarence Thomas Reading His Epic Takedown Of KBJ’s Affirmative Action Dissent Left Her “Visibly Angry”
“JUSTICE JACKSON’s race-infused world view falls flat at each step…. A contrary, myopic world view based on individuals’ skin color to the total exclusion of their personal choices is nothing short of racial determinism …. Worse, the classifications that JUSTICE JACKSON draws are themselves race-based stereotypes…. “
Clarence Thomas wrote an epic and monumental 58-page Concurring Opinion in the Harvard/UNC case.
Did I say Epic. I meant EPIC!!!
Unlike Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (KBJ), whose dissent read like a furious letter to the college newspaper or chants at a rally. Or a seminar on CRT. She talked about “lived experience” and the majority’s “let them eat cake” attitude. And the left loved it.
I am actually embarrassed as an American that a Supreme Court justice is using the phrase “lived experiences.” Are there non-lived experiences? https://t.co/PziIWknqCH
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) June 29, 2023
Justice Jackson’s clerks let her down for failing to citecheck: she parrots a mathematically incorrect claim from an amicus brief. I refuted it in detail when the brief was released in this October thread.
Already, MSM sources are repeating the slander. https://t.co/iVcTaMzepH pic.twitter.com/YpzwuCiyer
— (((tedfrank))) (@tedfrank) June 29, 2023
Justice Thomas was having none of it. But first he laid the foundation (emphasis added):
In the wake of the Civil War, the country focused its attention on restoring the Union and establishing the legal status of newly freed slaves. The Constitution was amended to abolish slavery and proclaim that all persons born in the United States are citizens, entitled to the privileges or immunities of citizenship and the equal protection of the laws. Amdts. 13, 14. Because of that second founding, “[o]ur Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.” Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, 559 (1896) (Harlan, J., dissenting).
This Court’s commitment to that equality principle has ebbed and flowed over time. After forsaking the principle for decades, offering a judicial imprimatur to segregation and ushering in the Jim Crow era, the Court finally corrected course in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954), announcing that primary schools must either desegregate with all deliberate speed or else close their doors. See also Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294 (1955) (Brown II ). It then pulled back in Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306 (2003), permitting universities to discriminate based on race in their admissions process (though only temporarily) in order to achieve alleged “educational benefits of diversity.” Id., at 319. Yet, the Constitution continues to embody a simple truth: Two discriminatory wrongs cannot make a right.
***
… I join the majority opinion in full. I write separately to offer an originalist defense of the colorblind Constitution; to explain further the flaws of the Court’s Grutter jurisprudence; to clarify that all forms of discrimination based on race—including so-called affirmative action—are prohibited under the Constitution; and to emphasize the pernicious effects of all such discrimination.
***
Combining the citizenship guarantee with the Privileges or Immunities Clause and the Equal Protection Clause, the Fourteenth Amendment ensures protection for all equal citizens of the Nation without regard to race. Put succinctly, “[o]ur Constitution is color-blind.” Plessy, 163 U. S., at 559 (Harlan, J., dissenting).
***
Despite the extensive evidence favoring the colorblind view, as detailed above, it appears increasingly in vogue to embrace an “antisubordination” view of the Fourteenth Amendment: that the Amendment forbids only laws that hurt, but not help, blacks. Such a theory lacks any basis in the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
***
Properly understood, our precedents have largely adhered to the Fourteenth Amendment’s demand for colorblind laws.4
***
In an effort to salvage their patently unconstitutional programs, the universities and their amici pivot to argue that the Fourteenth Amendment permits the use of race to benefit only certain racial groups—rather than applicants writ large. Yet, this is just the latest disguise for discrimination. The sudden narrative shift is not surprising, as it has long been apparent that “‘diversity [was] merely the current rationale of convenience’” to support racially discriminatory admissions programs. Grutter, 539 U. S., at 393 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). Under our precedents, this new rationale is also lacking.
***
Without such guardrails, the Fourteenth Amendment would become self-defeating, promising a Nation based on the equality ideal but yielding a quota- and caste-ridden society steeped in race-based discrimination.
***
Even taking the desire to help on its face, what initially seems like aid may in reality be a burden, including for the very people it seeks to assist. Take, for example, the college admissions policies here. “Affirmative action” policies do nothing to increase the overall number of blacks and Hispanics able to access a college education. Rather, those racial policies simply redistribute individuals among institutions of higher learning, placing some into more competitive institutions than they otherwise would have attended.
***
Yet, in the face of those problems, it seems increasingly clear that universities are focused on “aesthetic” solutions unlikely to help deserving members of minority groups. In fact, universities’ affirmative action programs are a particularly poor use of such resources. To start, these programs are overinclusive, providing the same admissions bump to a wealthy black applicant given every advantage in life as to a black applicant from a poor family with seemingly insurmountable barriers to overcome. In doing so, the programs may wind up helping the most well-off members of minority races without meaningfully assisting those who struggle with real hardship.
***
Finally, it is not even theoretically possible to “help” a certain racial group without causing harm to members of other racial groups…. As the Court’s opinion today explains, the zero-sum nature of college admissions—where students compete for a finite number of seats in each school’s entering class—aptly demonstrates the point. Ante, at 27.9 Petitioner here represents Asian Americans who allege that, at the margins, Asian applicants were denied admission because of their race. Yet, Asian Americans can hardly be described as the beneficiaries of historical racial advantages.
***
Far from advancing the cause of improved race relations in our Nation, affirmative action highlights our racial differences with pernicious effect. In fact, recent history reveals a disturbing pattern: Affirmative action policies appear to have prolonged the asserted need for racial discrimination.
***
The solution to our Nation’s racial problems thus cannot come from policies grounded in affirmative action or some other conception of equity. Racialism simply cannot be undone by different or more racialism. Instead, the solution announced in the second founding is incorporated in our Constitution: that we are all equal, and should be treated equally before the law without regard to our race. Only that promise can allow us to look past our differing skin colors and identities and see each other for what we truly are: individuals with unique thoughts, perspectives, and goals, but with equal dignity and equal rights under the law.
So far, so good, but it got better when Justice Thomas ripped apart KBJ’s dissent. While he criticized Sotomayor’s Dissent here and there, he let KBJ have it, devoting a long section of his concurring opinion to ripping her argument apart head on.
JUSTICE JACKSON has a different view. Rather than focusing on individuals as individuals, her dissent focuses on the historical subjugation of black Americans, invoking statistical racial gaps to argue in favor of defining and categorizing individuals by their race. As she sees things, we are all inexorably trapped in a fundamentally racist society, with the original sin of slavery and the historical subjugation of black Americans still determining our lives today. Post, at 1–26 (dissenting opinion). The panacea, she counsels, is to unquestioningly accede to the view of elite experts and reallocate society’s riches by racial means as necessary to “level the playing field,” all as judged by racial metrics. Post, at 26. I strongly disagree.
First, as stated above, any statistical gaps between the average wealth of black and white Americans is constitutionally irrelevant….
Yet, JUSTICE JACKSON would replace the second Founders’ vision with an organizing principle based on race. In fact, on her view, almost all of life’s outcomes may be unhesitatingly ascribed to race. Post, at 24–26. This is so, she writes, because of statistical disparities among different racial groups. See post, at 11–14. Even if some whites have a lower household net worth than some blacks, what matters to JUSTICE JACKSON is that the average white household has more wealth than the average black household. Post, at 11. This lore is not and has never been true. Even in the segregated South where I grew up, individuals were not the sum of their skin color. Then as now, not all disparities are based on race; not all people are racist; and not all differences between individuals are ascribable to race.
***
Accordingly, JUSTICE JACKSON’s race-infused world view falls flat at each step. Individuals are the sum of their unique experiences, challenges, and accomplishments. What matters is not the barriers they face, but how they choose to confront them. And their race is not to blame for everything—good or bad—that happens in their lives. A contrary, myopic world view based on individuals’ skin color to the total exclusion of their personal choices is nothing short of racial determinism. JUSTICE JACKSON then builds from her faulty premise to call for action, arguing that courts should defer to “experts” and allow institutions to discriminate on the basis of race. Make no mistake: Her dissent is not a vanguard of the innocent and helpless. It is instead a call to empower privileged elites, who will “tell us [what] is required to level the playing field” among castes and classifications that they alone can divine.
***
Worse, the classifications that JUSTICE JACKSON draws are themselves race-based stereotypes.
***
Though JUSTICE JACKSON seems to think that her racebased theory can somehow benefit everyone, it is an immutable fact that “every time the government uses racial criteria to ‘bring the races together,’ someone gets excluded, and the person excluded suffers an injury solely because of his or her race.” Parents Involved, 551 U. S., at 759 (THOMAS, J., concurring) (citation omitted). Indeed, JUSTICE JACKSON seems to have no response—no explanation at all—for the people who will shoulder that burden….
There is no reason to continue down that path. In the wake of the Civil War, the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment charted a way out: a colorblind Constitution that requires the government to, at long last, put aside its citizens’ skin color and focus on their individual achievements.
Thomas won't stop talking about how much Jackson sucks.
Her worldview is one where "experts" go around giving us favors or discriminating based on race, then one day lead us to “'march forward together' into some utopian vision." pic.twitter.com/UWwv5pleMk
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) June 29, 2023
An NBC News reporter in the courtroom when Justice Thomas read his concurring opinion described the look on KBJ’s face (emphasis added):
During Thomas’ lengthy concurrence, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the court, did not look toward, or make eye contact once with Thomas, the second Black man to serve on the court. She sat in her seat at the end of the bench, looking straight ahead, taking occasional sips of her coffee.
She appeared to be visibly angry.
So be angry.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
She need the whack on the noggin.
Jackson’s world view reminds me of teens who feel they deserve more but are unwilling to work for their wants, spoiled brats. We have to explain as parent that we do not care what they want, that becoming an adult means taking responsibility.
She is fundamentally unqualified to serve on the court and is only there because of her race and gender (although she can’t even define what her gender supposedly is). Her dissent reads like a high school essay. All fluff and no substance.
In her worldview, race, as determined by the 348 genes that influence skin color, is utterly fixed and immutable but sex, simple binary expression defined by 2 chromosomes, is ambiguous and fluid.
Actually, that’s not what she said about sex (gender). She said she couldn’t answer the question “what is a woman” because she’s not a biologist. This implies that biology can offer the answer, and the answer to “what is a woman” is “an adult female human being.”
I doubt that’s what she meant, though.
I do like this concept of “lived experience” as if my subjective feelings are a substitute for, or better than, actual evidence.
How does she(?) know that she(?) is a woman? There must be a clue or two.
Specifically a woman is an adult human with XX sex chromosome configuration
Being old, if I turned in an essay like that in high school, I would have been required to redo it.
She, who could not define what a woman is probably cannot define what an adult is. She is like a 1960s parody of black freedom fighting. It’s like she hasn’t been here for the last 60 years and seen any progress. Did she not notice that obama had a dark tint to his skin? Did she not note that the BLM got away with murder? I look to her in the near future to embarrass herself over “Reparations” and how they are owed to “Her” people. None alive ever picked cotton and none alive ever owned a slave.
She deserves to be so skewered, and often, and by somebody who knows how.
Unluckily for her, she shares a physical bench with that very person.
If she’s pissed off, it’s because deep down inside she only believes she’s gotten as far as she has… not because of her qualifications but because of the color of her skin.
She probably also knows that in the end Thomas is 100% in the right.
I doubt that very much. She has spent her whole life being told how exceptional she is and I highly suspect this is the first time she’s been told she is wrong on something. I very much doubt she is capable of learning anything that runs counter to her world view.
Worst part about this is she will be in her role for another 30 or 40 years at the very least.
The other worst part about this is she is there as a dependable Democrat Justice who can be entirely relied upon to vote the same way every time something of importance to Democrats ends up at the Supreme Court.
And in a way I respect that about Democrats. They put people they know they can depend on on to positions of influence. Conservatives need to do the same and put hard core right wing “extremists” everywhere they can!
She probably knows that she doesn’t have half the intellectual ability Thomas has and that he didn’t get where he is by race and affirmative action. He is an affront to all social justice norms and that makes her angry.
You just said the magic words.
From KJB’s dissent:
“But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.”
She reveals she’s not interested in justice at law, but in “social justice.” She has no place on SCOTUS.
Well, some ass put her(?) there. Wonder who that was….? Sotomayor is another one that is at the wrong end of the SCOTUS bell curve.
It appears that using the rules of “affirmative action” has produced predictable results in the SCOTUS.
Because that is true??
“She appeared to be visibly angry.”
She knew this was coming. The justices swap drafts of their opinions well before the announcement of the final judgment.
Thomas dun shown her up,
https://thesaurus.plus/img/synonyms/171/shown-up.png
She probably didn’t expect he would read it out loud. lol
Imagine being put in an affirmative action position you are totally unqualified for, combine that with hubris and low IQ then being shown up at every turn by someone who got where he is by merit and substance. Instead of trying to up your game you just get angry and try to take him down refusing to change anything about yourself. Every time you get publicly humiliated you just get angry. This is what we are seeing.
Arrogant, condescending, hubris with a self inflated sense of self worth based on nothing but public accolades by people pushing you along for their self interests not on your accomplishments. Sounds like a recent democratic president.
KBJ is a politician rehashing the usual left-wing political talking points. She’s pro-black, which is fine except when it necessarily implies anti-white and anti-Asian, as it does here, but she doesn’t care about that. Sotomayor started out that way but has improved a bit with the wisdom of her further experiences after joining the Court.
We don’t care if she is pissed off, that is a hard life lesson.
After Biden’s shameful selection process, so does everybody else.
It’s because she did get as far as she has . . not because of her qualifications but because of the color of her skin. The only real reason(s) she was nominated was that she was (1) ☑︎black; and (2) a ☑︎ woman. Her actual legal qualifications came in a distant third, if even that.
You forgot to capitalize Black.
No, I didn’t forget. I never capitalize the work “black” when referring to the race.
Oh, my. I think I am having the vapors!
Also, how do we know she’s a woman? She doesn’t even know what one is, so she’s not a reliable source of evidence as to that factual issue.
Based on the lack of intelligence in her opinions and her confirmation hearings, she is probably mostly right.
KBJ was an AA admissions to Princeton. Even she didn’t think enough about her abilities to enter on equal basis of other student who proved they could achieve success not based on their race.
She is a disgusting, unqualified, petulant child and always will be.
She can’t admit to not having attained her position because of her race, because she’d contradict her own opinion that special, race-based benefits are necessary for the advancement of individual black Americans. It doesn’t matter if it’s true in her case or not, she paints herself into a corner.
As does her mirror image big Mike. She got into Princeton because her older brother was a star basketball player there at the time and no other reason. Her teachers told her that her grades and tests were so low that she needn’t apply there. Yet she has the gall to weigh in on affirmative action!
“She believes she has gotten as far as she has, not because of her qualifications, but because of the color of her skin.”
And she is probably correct. I live in a large city that is two thirds African American. Several times a year I will meet AA’s who are brilliant. If you have never met an AA who is smarter than you are,
you might want to get out more. Try to find a Clarence Thomas and avoid the KBJ’s.
Pro Tip: Very smart AA’s tend to hang with other very smart people.
Well, so much for collegiality on the Court….
Good for Clarence!
And, even better, Roberts takes a couple of good whacks at Sotomayor in the majority Opinion. Check out the footnotes for some gems.
I suspect that she has never been particularly respectful of Thomas or his achievements. There may not have been much collegiality to lose.
I’ve long wondered how Jackson feels during conference when having to confront Thomas’ scholarship and deep expertise. I expect it must be somewhat intimidating. But that would overlook her Leftist mindset, under which there is no shame, no deference, no alternatives allowed.
What I hadn’t considered is that Justice Thomas has probably had enough of her rantings and clueless class-warfare-blame-society prattling in conference. If she is angry, it is not because he disagrees with her – no true Leftist cares what their opposition think. No, it’s because he made her rantings public! Exposure and being made open to mockery is the one thing a Leftist cannot abide; they cannot tolerate having their lies lit up and certainly not so flagrantly.
Jackson is a half-wit, and it’s always half-wits who are put in high positions without merit that act like the asshole she acts like. Always.
See: Michelle Obama.
Halfwit and full Racist
Susan Rice. Reviled and mocked by anyone who crossed her path at DoD or State.
Speaking of Michelle, her statement about this SCOTUS decision is hysterical, right from herc opening line, “When I got to college…”
Princeton grad.
Susan Rice engaged in typical 12 year-old girl behavior.
Speaking of Michelle…she’s a graduate of an elite college. My bachelor’s degree is from a perfectly respectable second-tier state school in Michigan you’ve never heard of unless you are a really rabid NCAA basketball fan.
You can read her senior thesis on line. My equivalent was the historical essay, which I’ve long since lost. Still, I can assure you mine, on the William Allen White committee, was much more thoroughly researched and much better written. And unlike hers, it wasn’t mostly about myself.
The truly sad part is that Big Mike is proud of that thesis.
Christopher Hitchins didn’t think much of her thesis.
“To describe it as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be ‘read’ at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn’t written in any known language.”
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/christopher-hitchens-on-michelle-obama/
And 98% of democrats, to be honest.
The Left is playing a dangerous game and pushing the edge toward disaster. Talk about “stochastic terrorism”. If their gambit goes horribly wrong ..something about reaping and wind needs to be considered.
This is exactly what you’d expect when a true zealot in ze’s humanistic religion is being challenged and forced to revert to cognitive dissonance.
Wait for a minute. If we interpret this ruling as activist liberal judges frequently do, does this ruling mean that HBCUs and all-girls schools are inherently discriminatory?
Asking for my die-hard liberal relatives.
I remember when they were forcing the all-boys schools to integrate even though they were popular, but leaving the all-girls schools alone if they could get paying customers (they were not especially popular).
So yes, I’d say that’s an imbalance that should be repaired, one way or the other. I’d go back to fully enabling single sex schools for boys too.
HBCU’s seem to admit whites, they just don’t get many white applicants. I remember reading about a white freshman at Morehouse who was voted dorm president by the other students in his dorm, who were all black. They appreciated having him there.
My brother was an OK football player in high school, and was offered a small scholarship by one of the state’s small black colleges. He didn’t attend. Opted to get a job instead.
Unfortunate that the pathetic bucket of spit Roberts has effectively paved the way for affirmative action business as usual. And I expect years more damage to be done by that scunge.
Think again. Colleges were always going to be able to use what students write in their essay. It’s not as if they wouldn’t have noticed that if he hadn’t mentioned it. But he mentioned it so that he could forbid colleges from using it to continue business as usual.
I don’t see what he could have done that would have been stronger, short of outlawing the student college admission essay.
Will they now have to remove the “Race” checkbox?
Stop tracking racial statistics?
Will all government entities now also have to cease with this racial-division stuff?
All okay with me.
That institutions will try to skirt any prohibition against their precious racist discrimination is a given. What this pompous clown has down is opened a door to justify their racist games with his ridiculous comments on an applicant’s heritage or culture or ability to overcome racial discrimination as being potentially benefits to a university. What this jerk has done , in his arrogance (this language is reminiscent of some of the garbage that came out of Souter or Kennedy) is give judicial imprimatur for essentially the same type of discrimination this opinion claims to denounce.
This man is a national treasure.
Please God let this great man only retire when someone else as great as him can take his place.
Cliche,, but not all heroes wear capes.. Some have black robes….
Surprised she understood any of it. After all she can’t describe what a woman is, so all them thar big words Jurist Thomas used had to be extremely confusing for her.
She appears to be the SCOTUS version of “binder lady”.
These two justices, Justice Brown and Justice Thomas, illustrate at the same time what is wrong with affirmative action is why a merit-based approach to success in America is the right way to go—each one being proof of the other.
*Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
Up next: Acknowledging the un-lived experiences of zombies and millions of other un-dead Democrat voters who are at risk of being disenfranchised.
I will read the concurrence. I usually don’t, but will make an exception. Jackson strikes me as a wokeflake. Everyone, please feel free to substitute wokeflake for snowflake. I used it yesterday, and even a “progressive” complimented me on the coinage.
Wokeflake. Excellent portmanteau.
I somehow doubt that Justices Jackson and Thomas will be going off on any chummy trips together as happened with the late Justices Scalia and Ginsburg.
Epic awesomeness
Jackson IS affirmative action personified. She is all of the checked boxes that define affirmative action and if anyone ever needed an example of why it doesn’t work, look no further.
She was very hard to pin down based on what she wrote before her SCOTUS nomination. She hid her inclinations well, and there was hope she would be nuanced and legally sound. Instead, she’s revealed herself as a one-dimensional ideologue, now that there’s no reason to hide anymore.
Jackson is a racist, and now has been spanked for it. Very funny.
Good for Thomas! Reading her dissent, it was very clear why she was appointed the BLM member of SCOTUS. Her vote is a surety on all racial issues, and likely she’s on Merrick Garland’s cell phone speed dial so she has her instructions in advance.
Jackson like Kagan and Sotomayor could care less about The Constitution. All they care about is party and race.
She is a racist and a not very bright person with a long history of judicial activism not rooted in law. This was well known before she was put on the bench. This opinion by her shows what will happen if outright radical BLM members ever become the majority on SCOTUS. To heck with the actual law and Constitution, whatever serves “equity” and social justice. I am ashamed for my country to have put such a radical intellectual lightweight on the highest court in the land.
Her activism is not so much rooted in law as it is in lawfare. Obama was probably the most consequential influencer in destroying the Spirit of Law and its basis of having been drafted in good faith. Rather, his concept (and Jackson’s I’m sure) is to look not at what the law allows, but at what it doesn’t specifically prohibit. That upside-down twist destroys all spirit of good faith, and has done more to wreck the law than an army of bigoted judges possibly could.
“Justice Jackson’s clerks let her down for failing to citecheck: she parrots a mathematically incorrect claim from an amicus brief.”
39: AA Justices have _____ clerks. (4 pts.)
“Her worldview is one where “experts” go around giving us favors or discriminating based on race, then one day lead us to “’march forward together’ into some utopian vision.”
Hope she’s found one by now to count on whenever she needs to know whether or not someone is a woman.
My lived experience is that people who look like her are stupid.
Wow, Justice Thomas’ response could also be viewed as the ultimate smack downs of both BLM and the Reparations Movement. This man is something else!! What a life story he’s writing.
And The Babylon Bee again doesn’t disappoint: “Awkward: Supreme Court Rules Against Affirmative Action With Affirmative Action Hire Sitting Right There”
Trying to link to the article.
Awkward: Supreme Court Rules Against Affirmative Action With Affirmative Action Hire Sitting Right There
Justice Thomas should be the pin-up dreamboat for intellectuals. His brilliant smack down of Justice Brown displayed his broad understanding of James Landis’ (1899 – 1964) government manipulation of the “administrative process” (1937-1946) so loved by FDR cited here:
“If the doctrine of separation of power implies division, it also implies balance, and balance calls for equality. The creation of administrative power may be the means for the preservation of that balance, so that paradoxically enough, though it may seem in theoretic violation of the doctrine of the separation of powers, it may in matter of fact be the means for the preservation of the content of that doctrine.”
This essay is adapted from “Up from Conservatism: Revitalizing the Right after a Generation of Decay,” edited by Arthur Milikh (Encounter Books, 328 pages, $32.99) Photo “James Landis” by Harris & Ewing.
https://tennesseestar.com/culture/commentary-a-deep-dive-into-the-century-of-conservatives-failure-to-contain-the-administrative-state/admin/2023/06/26/
This decision should be pay-per-view but I’ll take the freebie.
Brown-Jackson is a myopic fool. She needs better eyeglasses, and, remedial legal education, to boot.
The Court didn’t impose colorblindness “by fiat” — the 14th Amendment demands such colorblindness, and, the Court fairly and properly complied with that requirement.
Standard Leftist verbiage. Any time something happens unilaterally they don’t like, it’s “by fiat”. If they do like it, it’s “applying the law”.
If the President issued an executive order saying Affirmative Action is discriminatory and barring the Dept. of Education from making decisions based on race, it would be an “executive fiat”. SCOTUS saying the same thing is “judicial fiat”.
If SCOTUS had instead ruled that the 14th Amendment notwithstanding, Affirmative Action is constitutional and ALL colleges, universities, and employers must follow it, they would be “applying the law”. If the President issues an EO tomorrow ordering the DoEd to ignore SCOTUS and enforce AA anyway, he’ll be “applying the law”.
To Leftists, their policy preferences are all-important. The Constitution only matters as far as they can use it as a tool to support their agenda. When it doesn’t, it suddenly becomes “an outdated document written by white slave-owners”. (You’ve seen it happen, I’m sure.)
Hey, I’m just glad I got a chance to pounce.
My iPhone warns me that my pounce counter has been running low this past week.
The Left is ALWAYS angry, and nothing makes it angrier than indisputable facts and logic.
Emotion v Facts and logic. The two worlds will not mix.
Justice Thomas and CJ Roberts both wrote superb opinions that refuted the influence of identity poiitics on constitional law
The Left hates logical arguments against its positions and does whatever it can to stifle them. The Left expects its rage and violence to quiet the opposition.
No doubt about it, Thomas is the GOAT.
Several years ago I read a story about Thomas’s views of affirmative action. I believe it was in the New York Times but it’s been so long ago I forget now where I read it.
Anyway, as he was being interviewed for the piece, the the journalist noticed Thomas’s JD from Yale was hanging on the wall and it had a price tag affixed to it. The price tag was a few pennies.
The journalist found it curious and asked Thomas about it. Thomas explained that after graduating from Yale, he went on several job interviews. He got the impression he was passed over for jobs he was highly qualified for because of affirmative action. The potential employers did not believe he “earned” the degree based on hard work and talent, but instead had been admitted to Yale because he was black.
He had worked hard to earn the degree so that angered him. He decided to affix the price tag of a few pennies on the degree because that’s how much he thought it was worth due to affirmative action.
————–
As for Brown, didn’t we all know she was going to be a catastrophically disastrous Justice the moment she swore under oath during her confirmation hearings that she did not know how to define what a woman is because she’s not a biologist? I mean, how many laws have been written affecting women in some way or another?
Yet she pretends not to know what a woman is. All useless Democrats were joined by three useless Republicans in voting to confirm her nomination.
Of course she’s angry, they just struck down the provision that gave her her job. The pedophile set before he selected her that he was choosing based on race and sex no one but black women need apply. She is Affirmative Action Jackson
Carl does not appreciate being lumped in with this midwit.
Thanks, Prof J. Justice Thomas’s Concurring Opinion is a real jewel.
Brown’s idea of ‘Utopia’ is exampled by today’s South Africa.
Clarence Thomas, a man with every reason to be bitter given the scorched earth tactics to thwart his confirmation and ongoing efforts to delegitimize his work, writes one his best opinions ever. He stays true to his originalist philosophy, admits America’s problems with race, skewers all who would fight racism with more racism, and points to the ideals enshrined in the Declaration and advanced by the Fourteenth Amendment. He is truly “a man in full” and at the top of his game.
Ketanji Brown, by comparison, is not ready for prime time, judging by her unhinged dissent. There is no penetrating legal analysis to counter the majority and concurring opinions and she offers no hope to rally doubters to her point of view. A true professional in any walk of life understands that hardship and defeat are tough teachers and looks for lessons to be learned to improve their game. Will she learn from her first term on the Court on ways to hone her analysis, better understand differing viewpoints, and raise her skills of persuasion? Or will she simply simmer in resentment?
As he ages and further matures, Thomas is getting better and better. IMHO, he’s now in Scalia territory.
Let’s hope he has better bodyguards.
Does this current altercation remind anyone of the last somewhat similar event between Justice Thomas and a black woman, during his Senate confirmation over 30 years ago? Thomas has such a way of phrasing his comments about a “high tech lynching” that utterly devastates the woman who made the original comments. Delicious.
Winsome Sears on Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
“What you have is a justice who was chosen because she’s black and because she’s a woman…”
“She appeared visibly angry”
Sorry, not sorry. SCOTUS is the apex achievement of a lawyer/judge. There is not a higher judicial calling. Being a justice requires you to articulate your position pro or con regarding the law and apply the constitution in your judgement.
KBJ wrote a sophomoric dissent with cues from the radical left. Justice Thomas didn’t even have to break a sweat to tear it apart.
Kentanji has been REBUKED.
I confess to an unseemly Schadenfreude when I read this article. Sorry, Ms. Jackson.
Two comments I read today sum up Ms. Jackson.
“It’s unclear whether Jackson knows that she’s a sitting justice charged with determining whether policies are constitutionally sound and not an academic theorizing on what a perfect world might look like.”
“During her nomination hearings for the Supreme Court, Jackson admitted she didn’t know what a woman was, explained how kiddie porn convicts deserved preferential treatment, justified low sentences for drug dealers as victimless crimes, pretended not to know about her own woke ideology, and couldn’t figure out Roe v. Wade or even remember the Dred Scott decision. In all of her statements, Jackson publicly demonstrated that she is woefully unqualified for the seat she now occupies on the Supreme Court; the only reason she is now on the Supreme Court is that the Biden regime, which chose her as an affirmative action candidate based on her race and her sex and not on her experience or merit, chose to ignore all of the above-noted red flags against her when they came up.”
she had the blackacity to strut her faux “legal opinion” in the presence of an authentic attorney/jurist–she’s a transparent fraud–she’s hopelessly over-matched in intelligence let alone genuine legal training–if it weren’t so pathetically obvious would almost be funny–she should do the country a favor and resign forthwith
The converse of caudacity is N-titlement.
Brown is a Leftist ideologue with the mind of just a log.
Jackson… gee… got stuck on “Brown” which is what she is stuck on.
Maybe if she had learned the definition of “woman” back in high school biology class …….
Maybe Jackson will pull a “Souter”, now that she’s had her ass handed her? She’s clearly not cut out for the major leagues.
It is not often that reading Supreme Court decisions can be called entertaining. However, reading Thomas’s take-down of Katanji-Jackson and “the wise Latina” in this case, and Gorsuch’s masterful take down of “the wise Latina” in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (just decided) are fun reading. It is obvious that these two women were selected for the Court simply because the Democrats were able to check some racial/gender/ethnicity boxes, and neither had anything to do with merit. They represent perfectly the caliber that Democrats are currently adding to the federal bench. The opinions of these two “jurists” are not only bad and embarrassing, they reflect a legal philosophy pushed in law schools, HR departments, faculty lounges, and big tech. It is designed to put groups at each other’s throats and, as both Thomas and Gorsuch state, to give more power to our progressive elites. These two legal knee-highs are going to be with us for a long time. Pray for a Republican president, or there will be many more on the federal bench like these two.
She is unfit to be a lawyer yet alone a Supreme Court Justice.
So, long ago African tribes, who were practicing slavery for hundreds of years prior to the discovery of North America, sold their captured human booty to others who brought them to North America where the African practice of slavery was adopted as it was in many places around the world. If African Americans want to become full participants they must do it without the crutch of Affirmative Action. The majority already have. Affirmative action was a mistake. Justice Thomas is right.
So, institutions can enact systems that are formally race neutral, but effectively perpetuate the discrimination of the past; such as legacy admissions, the old-boy network, or last hired first fired. Thomas would allow systemic racism to perpetuate the discrimination of the past.
“.. For it is obvious that if a man enters the starting line of a race 300 years after another man, the first would have to perform some incredible feat in order to catch up.” – Martin Luther King
“The Constitution was amended to abolish slavery and proclaim that all persons born in the United States are citizens, entitled to the privileges or immunities of citizenship and the equal protection of the laws. Amdts. 13, 14. Because of that second founding, “[o]ur Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.” Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, 559 (1896) (Harlan, J., dissenting).”
SCOTUS Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote in the 1857 Dred Scott decision “For if they [members of the negro race] were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own satiety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/dred_scott_v_sandford_(1857)
Do you have the right to keep and carry arms wherever you go? There are many federal state and city laws that claim you do not unless you are a law enforcement officer or have some sort of government issued permission slip where you are still subject to restrictions. These are distinctions that I do not see in the U.S. Constitution, which does appear to be establishment of classes among our citizens.
People too small to fill the roles they are cast in by revolutionaries and others too small….
I spent much of my career at Places like JAG, Baker & Mckenzie, McDermott, Will & Emery etc… I’ve seen many people who have made it through law school with high marks and glowing letters of recommendation wash out because they didn’t have the mental maturity and wisdom to fulfill the duties of the job. In some cases they become poster children for the peter principle. In one case I watched a bird colonel who had been moved up to the appellate level be moved out in weeks. She clearly was not judge material. Her thought process were infused with and confused by illogic and emotion. Today those traits may have won her a seat on the high court. Our schools are turning out these little broken people at such a level that soon there will not be a Clarence Thomas to call it out and save us all from these idiocracy types. Moral of the story…. Know who’s teaching your kids!
That’s the thing about racists, they’re often quite angry, so it’s no surprise that the racist KBJ is angry when shown to be a bigoted dolt. In her dissent, she wrote “JUSTICE THOMAS’s prolonged attack, ante, at 49–55 (concurring opinion), responds to a dissent I did not write.”
I get the desire not to be associated with it, but her name is on it. If she didn’t write it then which bigoted woke idiot did?
Kantaji-Brown is a racist so embedded in racism to a point where nothing matters to her but race. A judge that cannot distinguish, or even know her own sex, cannot judge a dog show.