Term Paper on "Thurgood Marshall and Clarence"

Term Paper 8 pages (3486 words) Sources: 0

[EXCERPT] . . . .

When he was appointed to the EEOC, Thomas largely abandoned the use of class action suits that relied on statistical evidence to prove widespread discrimination at corporations, preferring instead to focus on individual suits.

While many credit him with improving morale at the agency, others criticize him for allowing 9,000 age discrimination complaints to lapse.

In 1990, he was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and while there he wrote a revealing opinion for the court in an affirmative action case, which held that the federal government may not give preferential treatment to women in awarding broadcast licenses, even though it does so for other minority groups.

Many civil rights groups, notably the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus declared they would not support Thomas' nomination to the Supreme Court because of his opposition to the traditional civil rights agenda.

Thomas has expressed support for a limited role for the Court and a narrow reach of constitutional guarantees, and when the Court ruled in Hudson v. McMillian, 1992, that excessive force used by a prison guard may violate the Constitution even if it does not result in serious injury to a prisoner, Thomas dissented, arguing that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment "should not be turned into a national code of prison regulation."

And in a death penalty case, Thomas wrote a separate concurring opinion that emphasized the irrelevance of a prisoner's poor background and troubled upbringing.

There are claims that the Bush administration has discussed the possibility of Thomas succeeding William Rehnquist as chief justice, however, Justice Antonin Scalia told Thomas biographer Ken Foskett, that Thomas "doesn't believe in stare decisis, period."

In 1986, Justice Thurgood Marshall explained for the court that, stare decisis is the "means by which we ensure that the law will not merely change erratically, but will develop in a principled and intelligible fashion."

In 1995, Thomas was the swing vote in several important five to four rulings, and in major civil-rights cases, he cast the deciding vote against voting rights for ethnic minorities, affirmative action to remedy past discrimination, and school desegregation.

In Rosenberger v. University of Virginia, Thomas' deciding vote in effect sanctioned the funding of religion with public funds, and spurred debates on the separation of church and state.

In 1991, William McGurn wrote in the National Review that just as Thurgood Marshall's ascendancy to the Court provided a lodestar for an entire generation, Thomas' messages of self-help and family values, "his skepticism about government imposed quotas, and above all his reaffirmation of the validity of the American proposition threaten the hegemony of an ossified civil-rights establishment and its ruling party."

In the June 2005 Batson v. Kentucky decision, Justice Breyer, stated "the Court adopted a burden-shifting rule designed to ferret out the unconstitutional use of race in jury selection," and referred to Marshall's prediction, "that the Court's rule would not achieve its goal," and that the only way to end the racial discrimination that peremptories inject into the jury-selection process, Marshall concluded, "was to eliminate peremptory challenges entirely," and this "case reinforces Justice Marshall's concern."

Thomas has many supporters who believe that he chooses his battles carefully, and when he engages, he does so with a clarity of purpose and vision all too rare in contemporary jurisprudence.

Justice Thurgood Marshall is considered by any standard as one of the great Americans of his time, and one of the shapers of history.

However, some question whether it is fair to hold Thomas to Marshall's standard, or whether it is actually racist to assume that by virtue of his life experience he should think and react a certain way.

Bibliography

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Henderson, Stephen. 2005. Justice Thomas a strong critic of racial discrimination claims. Knight Ridder Washington Bureau. June 18. Available from HighBeam Research Library Web site. (accessed July 03, 2005).

Henderson, Stephen. 2005. Justice Thomas a strong critic of racial discrimination claims. Knight Ridder Washington Bureau. June 18. Available from HighBeam Research Library Web site. (accessed July 03, 2005).

Henderson, Stephen. 2005. Justice Thomas a strong critic of racial discrimination claims. Knight Ridder Washington Bureau. June 18. Available from HighBeam Research Library Web site. (accessed July 03, 2005).

Henderson, Stephen. 2005. Justice Thomas a strong critic of racial discrimination claims. Knight Ridder Washington Bureau. June 18. Available from HighBeam Research Library Web site. (accessed July 03, 2005).

Henderson, Stephen. 2005. Justice Thomas a strong critic of racial discrimination claims. Knight Ridder Washington Bureau. June 18. Available from HighBeam Research Library Web site. (accessed July 03, 2005).

Henderson, Stephen. 2005. Justice Thomas a strong critic of racial discrimination claims. Knight Ridder Washington Bureau. June 18. Available from HighBeam Research Library Web site. (accessed July 03, 2005).

Henderson, Stephen. 2005. Justice Thomas a strong critic of racial discrimination claims. Knight Ridder Washington Bureau. June 18. Available from HighBeam Research Library Web site. (accessed July 03, 2005).

Henderson, Stephen. 2005. Justice Thomas a strong critic of racial discrimination claims. Knight Ridder Washington Bureau. June 18. Available from HighBeam Research Library Web site. (accessed July 03, 2005).

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Black Issues in Higher Education. February 05. Available from HighBeam Research Library Web site. (accessed July 03, 2005).

Higginbotham, A. Leon, Jr. 1998. Breaking Thurgood Marshall's promise.

Black Issues in Higher Education. February 05. Available from HighBeam Research Library Web site. (accessed July 03, 2005).

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