I've always wondered what kind of legislator a supreme court justice would make.

[PHILIP SCHNEIDER]

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas visits University of Portland

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By Casey Parks | [e-mail]
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on September 19, 2013 at 6:37 PM, updated September 20, 2013 at 1:07 PM

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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas rarely visits the West Coast. He made the journey to the University of Portland, where he spoke Thursday, because he made a promise to E. William Beauchamp, the Catholic school’s president.

“Some years ago, Father Beauchamp did me a favor to help me help someone I care deeply about,” Thomas said. “I promised him I’d come to the University of Portland one day. It probably caused him more trouble than he wanted.”

The “someone” was in the crowd, a junior named Dakota Garza. The Supreme Court justice never mentioned her by name or told the details of her story, but much of his talk helped shed light on why they connected.

Thomas is one of the country’s most controversial public figures, known among legal experts as the century’s most conservative judge. He’s attracted protests and ire in locations far less liberal than Portland. But there was no sign of trouble as Thomas spoke to a crowd of 1,200 Thursday. A Q&A stuck to light questions. The audience laughed as Thomas cracked self-deprecating jokes and told stories about his hardscrabble youth.

Political Science professor Gary Malecha and assistant professor William Curtis led a discussion with the justice that included questions about his Catholic studies, sports teams and which late justices Thomas would invite to dinner.

“I would have them invite me,” Thomas joked before naming Justice John Marshall Harlan, who wrote “an exquisite dissent” in Plessy v. Ferguson, an 1896 decision affirming the “separate but equal” doctrine used to justify racial segregation.

He said he wished he had spent more time with Justices Thurgood Marshall and Justice Byron White. He said he’d let the others “rest in peace” because being a justice would have been hard enough.

“This job has an amazing way of humbling you,” Thomas said. “You realize how small you are when you’re sitting in your office alone, when you have read through all the briefs and you must vote. You don’t get to hem and haw. You must vote. You must decide.”

The professors didn’t ask about those votes. Their questions rarely veered into political territory, and when they did, Thomas negotiated around them.

“If the founding fathers came back and saw what we have today, would they be surprised, pleased?”  Malecha asked.

“I think most of what they say would be bleeped out,” Thomas answered.

Between jokes, Thomas talked about his life. The road from tiny Pin Point, Ga., where he shared a one bedroom with his grandfather and brother, to the highest court was long and hard, he said. But he drew strength from the Irish nuns who taught him school, who told him that African-Americans were inherently equal to white people.  

“I read these narratives about the South, and they all have us crawling through dirt, and when we’re not crawling, we’re running from the Klan,” he said. “I lived with people that were positive and reinforcing and directed us in a certain way.”

Because of the nuns’ influence, Thomas said he has spent his life trying to similarly inspire “kids from modest backgrounds, kids whose parents had to decide between the rent and braces.”

“They are the people who reflect the American dream,” he said. “They don’t need you to carry them. They just need a part of your life to give them guidance.”

Which is how he wound up making a promise to the school’s president in 2011.

Beauchamp was working in his office that summer when Thomas called him out of the blue. Thomas said he had met a young woman who had been homeless but worked hard and earned good grades at a Medford High School. Garza's dream was to attend the University of Portland’s nursing program, Thomas said. She'd won a handful of scholarships, but not enough to cover $37,000 a year in tuition plus room and board.

Thomas asked Beauchamp if the school and the Horatio Alger Association, a nonprofit of which Thomas is a member, could make up the difference.

Garza was in the audience Thursday, laughing along with the rest of the crowd. When she starts hospital internships for nursing next year, she’ll do so without debt. She left alone, smiling.

-- Casey Parks

Would a supreme court justice make a good legislator? 

Justice Clarence Thomas would make a good legislator.

Actually, I think he'd make a good anything including President.

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But then who would take his place on the Supreme Court?