On July 1, 1991, President Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, a young (43 years-old) black conservative judge, to replace retiring justice Thurgood Marshall, a civil rights icon and the Court's first African American justice.
(meta data) TITLE: THE SUPREME COURT; CONSERVATIVE BLACK JUDGE, CLARENCE THOMAS, IS NAMED TO MARSHALL'S COURT SEAT - The New York Times (meta data) AUTHOR: https://www.nytimes.com/by/maureen-dowd (meta data) PUBLISHED DATETIME: 1991-07-02T01:00:00-04:00 Skip to contentSkip to site indexU.S.Log InToday's PaperU.S.|THE SUPREME COURT; CONSERVATIVE BLACK JUDGE, CLARENCE THOMAS, IS NAMED TO MARSHALL'S COURT SEAT Supported by THE SUPREME COURT # THE SUPREME COURT; CONSERVATIVE BLACK JUDGE, CLARENCE THOMAS, IS NAMED TO MARSHALL'S COURT SEAT By Maureen Dowd July 2, 1991ImageCreditCreditThe New York Times ArchivesSee the article in its original context from July 2, 1991, Section A, Page 1Buy About the ArchiveThis is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems. Please send reports of such problems to archive_feedback@nytimes.com. President Bush today nominated Clarence Thomas, a conservative Republican with a scanty judicial record on civil rights and abortion, to replace the retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court. If confirmed, the 43-year-old United States appeals court judge for the District of Columbia Circuit would follow Justice Marshall as the second black judge to ascend to the Court. But Judge Thomas, who has risen in Republican ranks as an advocate of bootstrap conservatism, would present a striking change from Justice Marshall, a civil rights pioneer and an anchor of the Court's declining liberal faction. With his selection of Judge Thomas, Mr. Bush focused attention on the future direction of the Court and the political implications that the nomination might have for the 1992 Presidential election and for stirring conflict in the Senate confirmation hearings. Reaction to Nomination Mr. Bush insisted today that the nomination was based entirely on merit, but it came amid a rich swirl of political speculation. Over the weekend, the White House had actively encouraged the impression that Mr. Bush would appoint a Hispanic judge, a step that could bolster Republican gains among Hispanic voters in Texas, Florida and California. In choosing a black nominee, Mr. Bush seemed to be aiming toward the less ambitious goal of insulating himself against charges that he is hostile to blacks. Response to the nomination broke along political lines, with civil rights groups and some Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee promising a tough grilling. Anti-abortion groups hailed the choice, in the apparent belief that Judge Thomas's generally conservative views would lead him to vote for reversal of the 1973 ruling that women have a Constitutional right to abortion. Tough Battle Foreseen White House aides said they expected a tough fight over confirmation, but in Congress there was a widespread feeling that barring an unforeseen scandal, most senators would find it hard to vote against a black nominee backed by a popular President. Mr. Bush said he had nominated Judge Thomas, the conservative former chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, because he was "the best man" for the job. Unlike Justice Marshall, who has long been a hero to civil rights groups, Judge Thomas has often alienated those groups with his positions opposing affirmative action, quotas and timetables. "I don't feel he's a quota," Mr. Bush said, standing with an uneasy-looking Judge Thomas in front of the weather-beaten shingled cottage that serves as Mr. Bush's office. "I expressed my respect for the ground that Mr. Justice Marshall plowed, but I don't feel there should be a black seat on the Court or an ethnic seat on the Court." The President and Judge Thomas struck the theme that the White House hopes will negate the inevitable criticism by civil rights groups about the nominee's dismissal of affirmative action as "social engineering." Mr. Thomas's life was offered as inspiring proof that minority members can pull themselves up from rough beginnings without special favors. "If credit accrues to him for coming up through a tough life as a minority in this country, so much the better," Mr. Bush said as he took pains to characterize the nomination as one in which race was an incidental factor. The President added with apparent feeling: "It proves he can do it, get the job done. And so that does nothing but enhance the Court, in my view." When Judge Thomas stepped up to the microphone, his hands clasped tightly in front of him, he had to stop speaking twice, as he tried to thank his grandparents, sharecroppers from rural Georgia, who had raised him in a tenement with no indoor plumbing. "As a child, I could not dare dream that I would ever see the Supreme Court, not to mention be nominated to it," he said. "Indeed, my most vivid childhood memory of a Supreme Court was the 'Impeach Earl Warren' signs which lined Highway 17 near Savannah. I didn't quite understand who this Earl Warren fellow was, but I knew he was in some kind of trouble." "I thank all of those who helped me along the way, and who have helped me to this point and this moment in my life, especially my grandparents, my mother and the nuns, all of whom were adamant that I grow up to make something of myself," Judge Thomas added, referring to the grandparents who raised him and his teachers in a Roman Catholic school near his boyhood home in Georgia. He said he hoped to be "an example to those who are where I was and to show them that, indeed, there is hope." Asked what he would say to critics who charged that he was selected only because he was black, and not because he had worked to advance the cause of blacks, Judge Thomas replied: "I think a lot worse things have been said. I disagree with that, but I'll have to live with it." President Bush's political strategists said he had wanted to choose a member of a minority, and all things being equal, would have preferred to choose a Hispanic judge from Texas, Emilio M. Garza. John H. Sununu, the White House chief of staff, and Senator Phil Gramm, a Texas Republican, had argued strongly for Judge Garza, the only other judge interviewed by Administration officials over the weekend. But in a conference call on Saturday, with Mr. Bush hooked up at his home here and Mr. Sununu, C. Boyden Gray, the White House counsel, and Dick Thornburgh, the Attorney General, hooked up in Washington, Mr. Gray and Mr. Thornburgh argued that Mr. Garza was "not ready," as one senior Administration official put it. The 43-year-old Judge Garza, who was only recently elevated to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in San Antonio, has not yet written any opinions as an appellate judge, and his private law practice did not involve cases on issues of far-reaching import. Today Mr. Bush seemed a bit hesitant because the direct symmetry of appointing one black to replace another left him open to charges that he was operating on a "quota," even as he is waging a bitter fight with civil rights groups, Democrats and moderate Republicans on the issue of quotas in the civil rights bill now before Congress. But, as a senior aide put it, "Bush decided to stare down the quota concerns because he liked Clarence and he really felt he had a good record." Administration officials felt that Mr. Thomas would attract heavy criticism from Democrats and civil rights leaders, but that two things would work in his favor: te Senate confirmed him by voice vote to the appeals court only a year ago, and his background, if not his record, will work to negate criticism from those who want a nominee who will champion the poor and oppressed. 'Picking the Wrong Negro' "They can't say Clarence isn't aware of what it's like on the other side of the tracks," said one top Bush official. In his news conference on Friday, Justice Marshall observed that race would be a factor in the nomination of his successor, but said it should not be used as "an excuse for doing wrong -- picking the wrong Negro and saying, 'I'm picking him because he's a Negro.' " That remark was widely interpreted as pre-emptive criticism of an appointment for Judge Thomas, who was named to the appeals court by Mr. Bush in 1989 in a step widely intepreted as preparation of an eventual appointment to the High Court. Other civil rights leaders, in interviews over the weekend, also cautioned against appointing a black with what they viewed as the wrong kind of ideology. "You can be assured that if we get some narrow-minded, right-wing conservative reactionary to fill this seat, it will be the mother of all confirmation hearings," Benjamin L. Hooks, executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, told The Los Angeles Times in an article published on Sunday. Today Mr. Hooks was more temperate in his reaction to the news of Judge Thomas's nomination, but he still had a sting in his subtext. "Since Justice Marshall's statement of his retirement, we have expressed the view that another African-American should be appointed to this position, making it clear, however, that it should be someone who embodies many of the attributes Justice Marshall so ably articulated," Mr. Hooks said in a statement. Today Mr. Bush said he was troubled by the criticism of Mr. Hooks, whom he described as a friend, and said he was eager to discuss the issue with him. During his Senate confirmation hearings for the appellate judgeship, Judge Thomas was criticized by civil rights groups as being lax in his job at the equal employment commission in enforcing bias laws to protect the elderly and minorities. In a 1987 article for The Yale Law and Policy Review, he referred to affirmative action as "social engineering." Today two Democratic Senators, Alan Cranston of California and Howard M. Metzenbaum ofOhio, threatened to investigate Judge Thomas's record on abortion, which is vague, and not let him off so easily on this subject as was the case with David H. Souter in his confirmation hearing. "I don't want my vote to contribute to an increasingly large and conservative anti-choice majority on the Supreme Court," Mr. Cranston said. Mr. Metzenbaum agreed, saying, "I will not support yet another Reagan-Bush Supreme Court nominee who remains silent on a woman's right to choose, and then ascends to the Court to weaken that right." Conservatives greeted the nomination with delight. Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah predicted easy confirmation, saying: "This man understands the difficulties of life. He has had a tough life but he's made it all the way. Anybody who takes him on in the area of civil rights is taking on the grandson of a sharecropper." Judge Thomas refused to answer questions today about his position on quotas or abortion, or even to give a personal reflection on what the Warren Court had done for minority members, saying he would reserve those thoughts for his confirmation hearing. Mr. Bush, on being asked if he was trying to put the Court on a conservative road for decades to come, replied that he had not discussed specific issues with Judge Thomas, nor had he with Justice Souter. "I don't know whether he'll agree with positions that our Administration takes or overthrow decisions or change positions that we think are right," Mr. Bush said. "But that doesn't matter. What matters is that he faithfully interpret the Constitution, and I am 100 percent convinced that that's exactly what he'll do." White House officials said Mr. Bush had worked from a list of names that were reviewed on a continuous basis by the Justice Department. The short list included Judge Thomas; Judge Garza; Edith Jones, a 42-year-old judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston, and Laurence Silberman, a United States appeals judge for the District of Columbia Circuit. According to a chronology provided by a senior Bush aide today, after Mr. Bush's news conference, Mr. Bush "settled upon Thomas" during the Saturday conference call at 3 P.M. On Sunday, Mr. Bush called Judge Thomas and, the aide said, "briefly discussed the job, reiterated again how impressed he was by his record and his confidence in him." But, the aide said, Mr. Bush "did not offer him the job at that point, but did invite him to come up here today, and as the President said, gave a fairly strong indication to him that he was his nominee." Judge Thomas still felt tentative enough about it on Sunday that he did not tell his wife that he had received a near-offer, Mr. Bush said today. Judge Thomas flew up to Kennebunkport in an Air Force plane today, accompanied by Mr. Gray, Mr. Sununu and Mr. Thornburgh. Mr. Bush spent about 20 minutes alone with Judge Thomas in his bedroom, the only place he felt he could get some peace from grandchildren and aides, the President's aide said. That is where Mr. Bush made the final offer and Judge Thomas accepted. "I had one or two points that I wanted to make to him to see that he felt comfortable with them," Mr. Bush said. "I wanted to be sure that he knew from me that there was no litmus test involved. I told him, if it's not violating a privacy, that he ought to do like the umpire -- call them as you see them. And I'm satisfied that he will." Mr. Bush said that he did not talk to any of the other candidates on the short list this weekend. After their chat in the bedroom, Mr. Bush and his nominee joined his advisers and family for a lunch of crabmeat salad and English muffins and ice water on the veranda. Today, after the news conference, as Mr. Bush and Judge Thomas walked back to the house, reporters called out to the judge, asking him if he played golf, one of Mr. Bush's favorite sports. "No," the nominee called back. "The ball's too small." A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 1 of the National edition with the headline: THE SUPREME COURT; CONSERVATIVE BLACK JUDGE, CLARENCE THOMAS, IS NAMED TO MARSHALL'S COURT SEAT. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe ## Site Index ### news ### opinion ### arts ### living ### more ### Subscribe
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Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination
Nomination.
Justice William Brennan stepped down from the Supreme Court in 1990. Thomas was one of five candidates on Bush's shortlist and was the one Bush was most interested in nominating. Bush's staff made three arguments against nominating Thomas at the time: Thomas had only served eight months as a judge; Bush could expect to replace Thurgood Marshall with Thomas in due time; and multiple senior advisors told Bush that they did not feel that Thomas was ready. Bush eventually decided to nominate Judge David Souter of the First Circuit instead, who was easily confirmed. 
 White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu promised that Bush would fill the next Supreme Court vacancy with a "true conservative" and predicted a "knock-down, drag-out, bloody-knuckles, grass-roots fight" over confirmation.