[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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