Transcripts For CSPAN Justice Clarence Thomas 20180215 : vim

I am going to get my glasses f i can find them. Good afternoon. Justice thomas, who is in the room downstairs, distinguished guests and colleagues. Thank you for joining the law library of congress and the United States Supreme Court today for the 2018 Supreme Court Fellows Program annual lecture. My name is jane sanchez, and i have the honor of serving as the 25th law librarian of congress. A little bit about the library the law library serves as the nations custodian of a legal and legislative collection of nearly three million items from all countries and Legal Systems of the world. Our foreign Law Specialists are a Diverse Group of foreigntrained attorneys who provide information and analysis on over 270 jurisdictions in the world. Our skilled law excuse me our skilled law library staff, both americantrained attorneys and law librarians, also provide Research Assistance and Reference Services on u. S. Federal and state legal issues. While our collections and our expertise reach across all points of the globe for todays event weve partnered with our next door neighbor who happens to be the highest court in the country. By the way, they are our pretty good neighbors. Theyre quiet and they keep to themselves pretty much. [laughter] ms. Sanchez this afternoon we are pleased to be able to collaborate with the Supreme Court as they celebrate their 45th year of the Fellows Program. Please note that todays program is being live streamed on the library of Congress Youtube channel so all sounds, images and remarks will be captured on video. Please take a moment to silence your cell phones and refrain from taking photos on any devices throughout the event. For that we would thank you. At this time i would like to invite to the stage jeffrey p. Minear, executive director of the Supreme Court Fellows Program and counselor to the chief justice of the United States. Thank you. [applause] mr. Minear thank you, jane, for the warm introduction, and thanks to you and the law library of congress for your partnership with the Supreme Court Fellows Program and sponsoring this everyones event. Since its creation in 1832 when the great John Marshall was still serving as chief justice, the law library has been an important resource and steady friend of the court. We could not ask for a better neighbor than the largest law library in the world, and theyre pretty quiet too. [laughter] mr. Minear let me say just a word about the Supreme Court Fellows Program and my capacity as its executive director. Each year the Supreme Court fellows commission made up of judges and other Legal Leaders appointed by the chief justice selects four talented professionals to spend a year within the federal judiciary participating in Court Administration while engaging in research and other enrichment opportunities. This everyones event is the public component of two days of activities in which we celebrate our current Supreme Court fellows and putting together 45 years of Fellows Program alumni. Over the course of today and tomorrow, we will select next years fellows from the superb finalist who is are with us this afternoon. I understand we have many law students with us in the audience today as well as law clerks from several courts from the federal and state systems. If you have an interest in how federal courts work, i hope you will take the time to learn more about the Fellowship Program and apply in the coming years. Invite you to go to fellows. Supremecourt. Gov. Application will be due in november. But before you set to work on your applications, we have a great feature this afternoon. We have as our distinguished guest the 105th justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, the honorable clarence thomas, who has served on the court since 1991. 10 years ago Justice Thomas published his best selling autobiography, my grandfathers son. That book shared, in the justices own words, his remarkable own story. We have the book available for purchase both here and at the Supreme Court gift shop. We are fortunate to have with us also the honorable Gregory Maggs to moderate todays conversation. When we planned this program, grerg was a professor at george greg was a professor at George Washington law school but in the past month hes received his Judicial Commission as judge of the United States court of appeals for the armed services. Judge maggs was a law clerk to Justice Thomas in 1991 and before that to Justice Anthony kennedy. Please join me in welcoming Justice Thomas and judge maggs. [applause] judge maggs do you feel comfortable, justice . Justice thomas no. This is not the most suitable position for introverts. We like to be in the shadows someplace. Judge maggs we were having a great time back then. Justice thomas it was fine back there. Dont yall have anything to do . [laughter] oh, my goodness. Sorry yall are dragging yourselves out on this day. Judge maggs justice, mr. Minear says its the 10th anniversary of the publication of your book my grandfathers son. Justice thomas i forgot about that. Judge maggs i want to ask Justice Thomas so youre judge maggs now . Judge maggs about a week. Justice thomas i think thats great. [laughter] [applause] Justice Thomas just changing the subject. [laughter] judge maggs justice, you start out the book when you are 9 years old. Why is that the place to start our autobiography . Justice thomas well, i had the manuscript to that and terry o is my final editor, just phenomenal human being and editor and musician and he understood. He dug deep within the manuscript and he said, you know you have a great title. I had picked out the title to my grandfathers son but he said, you have to explain the title within the first page or two. And he said, i found the explanation buried in your manuscript. And the line is, i was 9 years old when i met my father, and he said that most people wouldnt think of that because ultimately my grandfather is my father. Im my grandfathers son, not my fathers son. So that was my First Encounter that i remember with my father, and so thats why i started it out there to explain why i was my grandfathers son. Judge maggs life didnt start out too easy. You mentioned in the book you grew up in pin point. Your home didnt have water, didnt have electricity. When the house burned down you moved to savannah. He winter of 1955 Justice Thomas 1955. I was doing fine in 1995. [laughter] judge maggs 1955, you were hungry without knowing when would you eat and cold without knowing when you would be warm. Justice thomas thats a horrible feeling. You know, today we kind of i just get worn down. I was with a young woman who happened to be black in kansas recently and she said something really interesting. She said, im really tired of having to play the role of being black. I just want to go to school. And i think we theres at some point we are going to be fatigued with everybody being a victim. When i was a kid, there were tons of people who were in really bad circumstances. My grandfather would not let us wallow in that, and as you could tell throughout this book, hes my hero. He is the single greatest human being i ever met. With nine months of education but he never saw himself as a victim. He used to say that he was a motherless child. He never knew his father. His mother died when he was 7 or 8 years old. Of course they didnt have birth certificates then so he never knew quite how old he was. And then he was raised by his grandmother who was a freed slave. Then, she dies, and then he lives with an uncle who has 12 or 13 kids and who was a hard man. And yet he never complained. And he always said he would have this saying when youd want to whine or something. You know, you have to play the hand youre dealt. Days ays said, in those blacks played he said, you have to play the hand youre dealt. If you are dealt a bad hand you still have to play it. If you look in my office, my wonderful wife made me something when i went on the court, his saying was old man cant help dead but bury him. That is what i dont know if you saw the movie the help. That was my family. We were the help. My mom paid 10 a week, 5 if you had car fare. Ms. Mariah was a maid. My mother was a maid. My grandmother had been a maid. Cousin bea was a maid. Cousin dosha was a maid. You see what im saying . All of them were maids. And they were the help. And yet they never, ever complained. And life was hard. The things we consider hard today i have some College Students ask me a few years back, how would i explain, you know, talk to them now that the economy had taken a downturn . And i said [laughter] Justice Thomas and im looking at them and i said, how many of you dont have cell phones . Of course, they all had cell phones. How many of you dont have a computer . They all had computers. How many of you dont have a car . I think all but one had a car. I said, youre so far above the poverty line. When i was in school, you were at the poverty line. Youre making 90 cents an hour. You had no money. You had no shoes. He had like boots and things like that. You didnt worry about it because virtually everybody was there. And so when the economy took a downturn, when you are on the floor, there isnt a whole lot further you can go. And for them theyre losing from up here to maybe midway down. I really had no connection with them. But my further point [laughter] Justice Thomas i didnt have a radio. I didnt have a telephone. And theyre complaining and i certainly didnt have a car. It wasnt a problem. Because you had your dreams. You had your energy. You had more than the people you grew up around. I grew up around a world of total illiteracy. Thats the beauty. I am in the library of congress. Total illiteracy but the thing they had was hope that the next generation would learn how to read. They knew how important it was for me. So my grandfather wouldnt let me take i was a really good athlete too. I dont like to say that because people would want you to show you are a great athlete. Its too late in the day now. [laughter] Justice Thomas but he would not give us time off to play sports. We worked on the oil truck or on the farm. But if it had to do with the library you could do it. So at night he would let me go to the Carnegie Library where id started going in the summer of 1955 for the noble reason that summer 1955 i was 7 years old and we had just moved into this little tenement on the east side and on saturday they gave you cookies and juice. [laughter] Justice Thomas so i went for the very highminded reason of getting cookie and juice. And when you live in these neighborhoods, cookies and juice are a real treat. Along the way they introduce ou to dr. Seuss and if i hear, see spot run, one more time it was wonderful. You got cookies and juice. But it gave me this image of the library as this place to learn. And it became a haven. So i walked in here. Look where i am. I come from this world of illiteracy, place where me treasured learning and i get to be in the place of learning with all the books and all the people who are literate. That is a long way of saying i was very fortunate to grow up around people who saw beyond their circumstances and who refused to be limited by those circumstances or to wallo in the sort of wallow in the sort of victim status of their circumstances. Judge maggs tell me more about your grandfather. He was a very strict man. Was he unfair . Justice thomas oh, god no. People say they ask ometimes about my grandfather. Those days you had corporal punishment. They said, well, did you get like beatings . I said, yeah, but not as many as i deserved. And my grandfather, whenever he gave you one that he found out was unfair, that you didnt deserve it at that time he said, well, thats for the one you got away with. What do you say because you knew you got away with stuff . And every one of us knew, boy, glad you didnt get me on that one. But the no, my grandfather was a hard man but not a harsh man. Life was hard. I mean, anybody in this room who grew up in that environment that is a hard life. Where you have to figure out how you going to put a meal on the table, where you are theres a very fine line between the you not being able to eat today and being able to eat. And the gratitude. We always said grace before and after meal. Were catholic. And he would always be grateful. And this was almost this is the old porcelain top table. My grandfather sat here. I always sat facing him. I dont know why i got that position where he would just stare at you. Oh, my god, help me. And then my grandmother sat here and my brother sat there at this small table and he would always say, we are grateful that we have food on our table, clothes on our back and the roof over our head. And it doesnt get much better than that. So the he was never unfair. He was very generous. What he would do is lets say he would make us work to produce something. Then, he would say, we are able to provide for others because we work. So we are able to give them syrup beans or peas or or sugar canes or fruit because we worked. We were able to give them meat because we raised the hogs. So what he taught us was we had an obligation to do well so that we could do good, particularly for others. So i could not call that fair. I think my grandfather was probably one of the most compassionate people ive ever known because he always told us the truth. He always told us the truth about life and he was so i asked my brother. My brother unfortunately died 18 years ago jogging. A year and four months younger and he and i grew up with my grandparents. And i asked him when we were in our 40s, we were very close, and i said, do you think my grandfather when we went to live with him in 1955 said, i will never tell you to do as i say. I will always tell you to do as i do. Watch me. And so i asked my brother years later after my grandfather was long gone, was he ever a hypocrite . And my brother said, absolutely not. That he lived up to that. Think about that. Would you set yourself up as the model and the example to your own children . All you do is say, do what i do. Watch me every day. And once and we watched it because he would never let us out of his sight. [laughter] Justice Thomas and when he did let you out of his sight it was with the nuns. Or i could get away from him to the library. I loved the library. You know, the we take it for granted now because we have all these computers and all that stuff but just think of yourself coming from a house with no books and you get to walk into this world and had encyclopedia americana, encyclopedia britanica. It had webster. It had funk and wagnall. It had all sorts of fiction. It had magazines, look, life, time, all the newspapers. It was a smorg us boring when you went in. And you had a reference. They introduce you to National Geographic so you were all over the world. And this is all in savannah, georgia. And remember, this is a world of segregation. It gave you this window to everything else. It gave you a window beyond georgia. And the nuns encouraged it. The librarians encouraged it. So i had an opportunity some years ago to go back and write and thank all the librarians. And most recently i ran into a lady in savannah, an elderly white lady because i was among the early kids who went to the savannah public libraries, desegregated and i was kind of a nuisance there because i kept showing up. Was like i was wheres waldo . , its wheres clarence. Its time to get away from my grandfather and it was this amazing world. And i ran into this elderly white lady and she he started crying. And she said, i helped you at the savannah public library. And i said, oh, my gosh. It was really kind of emotional because i remember how scared i was. You have to cross in those days a lot of lines, but going to the library was worth doing that. Anyway, thats the library. Judge maggs tell me more about your Catholic Education and your decision to go to seminary. Justice thomas i used to ask Justice Scalia about that. He always thought it was interesting that we were so similar. He would say, clarence, he said, my parents, my father was a romance literature professor. My mother was a teacher so i know how i got here. How did you get here . And why are we at the same place . Why do we have the same set of beliefs . And i think the beauty of having gone to parochial schools was they taught us how to there was a right way to think about things, that we had to be honest with ourselves, honest about math, honest about physics, honest about chemistry, that you couldnt cheat when you did your latin translation or german or french because i had all those in high school. And i was talking recently with someone. He said, it was your formation, that there was always a right way to do things. There was an honest way to do things. And the progression is i became catholic when i went to he second grade in 1955. Sister mary rosa and wonderful person. At any rate, i became an altar boy and the progression is you become an altar boy and