[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 18 (Wednesday, February 12, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1254-S1255]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS' FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the end of 
my comments, an article in the Wall Street Journal of January 31, 1997, 
entitled ``Black Leaders Try to Deny Thomas' Status as Role Model,'' be 
printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, there have been a number of articles in 
various papers over the last couple of years about groups that tried to 
block Justice Clarence Thomas from speaking at various schools. I abhor 
this kind of activity.
  Justice Thomas was nominated by the President of the United States, 
went through his hearing, we had a vote on it up or down, and he was 
confirmed. That is the major trial that he should have to go through. 
He has the same rights, first amendment rights, as every one of us to 
speak. I am proud of the fact I come from a family that made the first 
amendment a hallmark, in bringing up the three Leahy children. I have 
been in this body for 22 years, defending the first amendment from 
attacks from any side, and I am proud of the achievements that has 
brought about. But I would say that those who try to block anyone from 
speaking disregard the first amendment.
  McCarthyism of the left is as bad as McCarthyism of the right. If 
some disagree with what Justice Thomas says, then let them seek their 
own forum to express that disagreement. Do not block the statements 
from being made in the first place. That is wrong. We, in this country, 
ought to understand that those who try to block speech, from the right 
or from the left, do a disservice to our Constitution, do a disservice 
to our country, and, most important,

[[Page S1255]]

they do a disservice to the diversity that makes up the greatest 
democracy in history.
  I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

              [From the Wall Street Journal Jan. 31, 1997]

         Black Leaders Try to Deny Thomas Status as Role Model

                         (By Edward Felsenthal)

       WASHINGTON.--When Benjamin Carson, a prominent African-
     American surgeon, was helping organizers find an inspiring 
     speaker to close a weeklong ``Festival for Youth'' in 
     Delaware this month, he pushed for Supreme Court Justice 
     Clarence Thomas.
       It wasn't only Justice Thomas's exalted title and status as 
     one of the country's highest-ranking public servants that 
     attracted Dr. Carson. It also was his remarkable rise from 
     poverty. The two men were acquainted through their membership 
     in the Horatio Alger Society, a group whose members have 
     overcome significant odds to achieve success.
       But when the Baltimore surgeon issued the invitation, he 
     never dreamed that he would set off a political firestorm. 
     After an organized protest from a regional chapter of the 
     National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 
     which threatened to picket the talk, Justice Thomas backed 
     out.
       Normally, ethnic organizations are only too eager to have 
     top elected or appointed officials visit and speak to 
     community groups, especially young people. But the Delaware 
     protest was the latest incident in an unusual drive against a 
     public official by some black leaders to deny the 
     conservative, 48-year-old justice a position as a role model 
     within the African-American community.


                       unflattering cover stories

       Last year, after a school-board member and local parents 
     threatened to protest, a Maryland school temporarily 
     retracted an invitation for Justice Thomas to speak at an 
     awards ceremony for eighth graders. Emerge, an influential 
     magazine among the black intelligentsia, has run two 
     unflatering cover stories on the justice, one portraying him 
     wearing an Aunt Jemima-style kerchief, the other portraying 
     him as a lawn jockey. His judicial decisions also have 
     attracted unusual personal attacks, including a stinging open 
     letter from former U.S. Judge Leon Higginbotham.
       Justice Thomas, whose bitter 1991 confirmation hearings 
     became a national spectacle because of Anita Hill's 
     allegations of sexual harassment, is certainly no stranger to 
     controversy. But the recent protests are extraordinary 
     because they have little or nothing to do with the highly 
     charged issues raised during his difficult confirmation. 
     Instead, they have to do almost entirely with Justice 
     Thomas's conservative views and decisions criticizing 
     policies such as affirmative action.
       While feminist groups took the lead in fighting against his 
     Supreme Court nomination, this time the criticisms of Justice 
     Thomas are being leveled almost entirely by other blacks. 
     Various civil-rights leaders claim--sometimes in terms that 
     are astonishingly abusive even by Washington standards--that 
     Justice Thomas has betrayed his race by opposing the 
     affirmative-action policies that his critics say helped get 
     him where he is, and by voting with the court's conservatives 
     on other civil-rights issues.
       ``If white folks want to have Justice Thomas serve as a 
     role model for their kids, that's their business,'' says 
     Hanley Norment, president of the NAACP's Maryland branch. Mr. 
     Norment, who helped plan the protest against Justice Thomas 
     at the Delaware festival, dismisses him as a ``colored lawn 
     jockey for conservative white interests.''


                           dissenting voices

       A number of black leaders, including national NAACP 
     President Kweisi Mfume, have raised concerns about the 
     campaign against Justice Thomas, and some say African-
     Americans should take pride in his accomplishments. ``This is 
     an embarrassment,'' says Michael Meyers, executive director 
     of the New York Civil Rights Coalition. Justice Thomas 
     ``doesn't hold my views on affirmative action. He doesn't 
     hold my views on race. But he is on the United States Supreme 
     Court, and he's entitled to . . . respect.''
       That sentiment is echoed even in some seemingly unlikely 
     places. ``Of course, he's a role model,'' says Charles 
     Ogletree, the Harvard Law School professor who was Anita 
     Hill's lawyer during the confirmation hearings. His success 
     proves ``that you can come up from poverty and have a huge 
     impact in our society.''
       Justice Thomas's career has engendered conflicted feelings 
     in black America from the moment he hit the national scene as 
     chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 
     the Reagan administration. Although mainstream black groups 
     such as the NAACP were worried that he was hostile to many 
     civil-rights laws, they opted not to fight his 1989 selection 
     to the federal appeals court in Washington. And although many 
     of those same groups later decided to oppose his elevation to 
     the Supreme Court, some believed that his humble origins 
     might ultimately make him more sympathetic to their civil-
     rights agenda.
       That hasn't happened. He has joined the court's 
     conservative wing in ruling that it's unconstitutional to 
     draw up voting districts primarily on the basis of race. He 
     concurred in a 1995 ruling that put strict limits on federal 
     affirmative action, saying such programs ``stamp minorities 
     with a badge of inferiority and may cause them to develop 
     dependencies.'' He also concurred that year in a decision 
     that curbed school desegregation, expressing astonishment 
     that ``courts are so willing to assume that anything that is 
     predominantly black must be inferior.''
       Other justices participated in these decisions, too, of 
     course. But Justice Thomas's African-American critics seem to 
     view his role as uniquely unforgivable, and that sentiment in 
     turn has provoked the concern about his influence on black 
     youth.


                         it doesn't affect him

       Justice Thomas won't comment on the Delaware incident, but 
     friends insist he isn't ruffled. ``He's been around long 
     enough dealing with the so-called civil-rights community 
     [that] it doesn't affect him,'' says Stephen Smith, a 
     Washington lawyer and former law clerk for Justice Thomas.
       After the area NAACP leaders threatened their protest, 
     Justice Thomas wrote festival organizers to say that, while 
     he doesn't object to ``peaceful demonstrations,'' he didn't 
     want to distract from the event's focus on children. Finally, 
     says a gleeful Mr. Morment, the Maryland NAACP official, 
     ``the guy made some decision that we agree with.''
       Other black leaders say they too would object if the 
     justice were invited to speak to kids in their area. It is a 
     way of ``getting his attention'' to communicate that ``we're 
     disappointed with the actions that you've taken, and so 
     therefore we can't hold you up as a role model,'' says Hazel 
     Dukes, president of the New York conference of the NAACP.
       It is in one sense ironic that Justice Thomas has provoked 
     such criticism: On a court whose members are more likely to 
     be found speaking at high-brow judicial conferences than 
     obscure local convention halls, Justice Thomas has shown a 
     special interest in talking with ordinary people, 
     particularly the young. His message is ``inspiring and 
     uplifting,'' says Norman Hatton, a vice principal at the 
     Thomas G. Pullen School in Landover, Md., where the justice 
     spoke at the awards ceremony last summer.
       Indeed, even some NAACP leaders are adopting a more 
     conciliatory approach. In a recent speech, Mr. Mfume, the 
     national president, criticized the Maryland chapter, saying 
     protests against Justice Thomas shouldn't rise to such a 
     level that they impede his right to speak. ``We must never 
     rush to silence free speech,'' he said. ``It doesn't matter 
     how we feel about Justice Thomas.''
       Dr. Carson, the surgeon, adds: ``Children shouldn't be 
     forced to watch ``a bunch of silly adults . . . put people 
     into corners and castigate them. . . . If anything is a bad 
     role model, that is.''
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER [Mr. Thomas]. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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