Clarence Thomas. Thomas's confirmation hearings were bitter and intensely fought, centering on an accusation that he had sexually harassed attorney Anita Hill, a subordinate at the Department of Education and subsequently at the EEOC. Hill claimed that Thomas had repeatedly made sexual and romantic overtures to her,...
Clarence Thomas. In 1979, he became a legislative assistant to Senator John Danforth ( R - MO) and in 1981 was appointed Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan appointed Thomas Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American judge, lawyer, and government official who currently serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He is currently the most senior justice on the Court following the retirement of Anthony Kennedy.
"Clarence Thomas fixes reports to include wife's pay". USA Today. Archived from the original on January 28, 2011. Retrieved February 5, 2011. ^ Coyle, Marcia (October 27, 2016). "Young Scholar, Now Lawyer, Says Clarence Thomas Groped Her in 1999". Law.com. Archived from the original on June 16, 2019. Retrieved June 16, 2019.
With steamy on-air chemistry and a flair for fashion, Kerry Washington has turned Olivia Pope into an iconic character.
Her inspiring performance earned her the NAACP Image Award for Best Actress. In 2006, Washington garnered critical acclaim for her role in The Last King of Scotland, playing Idi Amin’s wife Kay opposite Academy Award-winning actor Forest Whitaker. She took away an NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in this powerful film depiction of the sorrowful, blood-soaked atrocities of the Ugandan dictator.
HBO's docudrama Confirmation is putting the sober tale of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' 1991 nomination hearings back into the spotlight with actress Kerry Washington playing law professor Anita Hill. Specifically, Confirmation delves into Hill's testimony at Thomas' confirmation hearings, during which she alleged Thomas had made comments of a sexual nature that, in her opinion, constituted sexual harassment. Thomas vehemently denies these claims. The controversial new series has undoubtedly raised many questions about the personal life of the Supreme Court's most conservative justice, including, is Justice Thomas still married?
Thomas and Virginia remain married today with one son , Thomas' grandnephew Mark, whom the couple adopted in 1997, according to US News. Thomas also has a son from his first marriage.
Thomas dissented in Raich, again arguing for the Commerce Clause 's original meaning. Thomas and Scalia rejected the notion of a Dormant Commerce Clause, also known as the "Negative Commerce Clause". That doctrine bars state commercial regulation even if Congress has not yet acted on the matter.
In all, Thomas received the votes of 41 Republicans and 11 Democrats, while 46 Democrats and two Republicans voted to reject his nomination.
Thomas has consistently supported narrowing the court's interpretation of the constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause (often simply called the "Commerce Clause") to limit federal power , though he has broadly interpreted states' sovereign immunity from lawsuits under the clause.
The Senate confirmed Thomas by a vote of 52–48. Supreme Court experts describe Thomas's jurisprudence as textualist, stressing the original meaning of the United States Constitution and statutes. He is also, along with fellow justice Neil Gorsuch, an advocate of natural law.
On average, from 1994 to 2004, Scalia and Thomas had an 87% voting alignment, the highest on the court, followed by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter 's (86%). Scalia's and Thomas's agreement rate peaked in 1996, at 98%. By 2004, other pairs of justices were more closely aligned than Scalia and Thomas.
After asking a question during a death penalty case on February 22, 2006, Thomas did not ask another question from the bench for more than 10 years, until February 29, 2016, about a response to a question regarding whether persons convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence should be barred permanently from firearm possession. He also had a nearly seven-year streak of not speaking at all during oral arguments, finally breaking that silence on January 14, 2013, when he, a Yale Law graduate, was understood to have joked either that a law degree from Yale or from Harvard may be proof of incompetence. Thomas took a more active role in questioning when the Supreme Court shifted to holding teleconferenced arguments in May 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic; before that, he spoke in 32 of the roughly 2,400 arguments since 1991.
At the conclusion of the committee's confirmation hearings, and while the Senate was debating whether to give final approval to Thomas's nomination, an FBI interview with Anita Hill was leaked to the press. As a result, on October 8 the final vote was postponed and the confirmation hearings were reopened. It was only the third time in the Senate's history that such an action was taken, and the first since 1925, when Harlan F. Stone 's nomination was recommitted to the Judiciary Committee.