Justice Clarence Thomas became the second-longest-serving justice in U.S. Supreme Court history on Thursday, surpassing the late Justice John Paul Stevens after more than 34 years on the bench.
Thomas, 77, passed the milestone quietly, without fanfare from the institutions that spent decades trying to destroy him. The record is his anyway.
He has authored 835 Supreme Court opinions, according to SCOTUSBlog. His originalist jurisprudence now shapes the Court’s working majority. Key votes include overturning Roe v. Wade, ending affirmative action in college admissions, strengthening Second Amendment protections, and expanding religious liberty protections. In a concurrence touching the Voting Rights Act, Thomas called race-based redistricting a “disastrous misadventure.”
Cully Stimson, acting director of the Institute for Constitutional Government at the Heritage Foundation, called Thomas “a giant in the law.”
“The only reason that the left and liberals hate him is because he doesn’t think the way they expect a black person to think, he’s a conservative, and that’s the cardinal sin that he committed,” Stimson told The Daily Wire.
Thomas grew up in Pin Point, Georgia, raised in segregated Savannah by his grandfather. He attended Conception Seminary, graduated from College of the Holy Cross in 1971, and earned a law degree from Yale. He was nominated to the Supreme Court by President George H.W. Bush in 1991.
His confirmation hearing turned into one of the most televised confrontations in Senate history. After sexual harassment allegations from former colleague Anita Hill surfaced, Thomas did not retreat. He went after the committee directly.
“This is a circus, it’s a national disgrace,” Thomas told the Senate Judiciary Committee, then chaired by Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware. “And from my standpoint, as a black American, as far as I’m concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas.”
Thomas denied the allegations and was confirmed 52-48.
Rep. Byron Donalds, a Republican from Florida and frontrunner for governor, responded to the milestone Thursday.
“We’re talking about a man who overcame the weight of segregation to become one of the most consequential legal minds of our time,” Donalds wrote on social media. “In his 34+ years of service, he’s been a stalwart figure in the American judicial system, steadfast in his commitment to originalism and preserving the founding principles that built our Republic.”
Stimson credited Thomas’s devout Catholic faith for his judicial philosophy. “He knows the names of every single person in the Supreme Court building, from the janitor to the electrician to the food service preparers to the elevator operators, and he genuinely cares about people,” Stimson said.
Only Chief Justice John Roberts, who was appointed in 2005, has served longer on the current Court. Thomas remains the longest-serving associate justice alive.
