Perhaps to avoid the snowpocalypse in D.C., Justice Clarence Thomas went down to the Sunshine State this week, where he spent time speaking with law students at Stetson University and the University of Florida.
Though he’s the sphinx of the High Court, Justice Thomas is loquacious when not in oral arguments. He’s an engaging speaker: personable, genuine, funny.
Though we cringed watching video from his Thursday talk at the University of Florida. He talked about the elitism in SCOTUS clerk hiring and complained about “smart bloggers” — or “self-proclaimed smart bloggers” — labeling his clerks “TTT” last year. “That’s the attitude that you’re up against,” he told the UF law students.
We hope that comment was not inspired by these pages. In 2008, CT’s law clerks came from George Mason, Rutgers, George Washington, and Creighton law schools. If there were any “TTT” references to them here, they were in the comments section and did not come from our “smart” mouths, er, fingers. (Reader comments should not be confused with ATL editorial comment; this is why we hide the comments, for your protection.)
We worship The Elect, regardless of alma mater. Lat has been heaping slavish adoration at the feet of SCOTUS clerks since 2004.
More thoughts from Justice Thomas on clerk hiring, paying off his student loan debt, and law firm layoffs, after the jump.
A UF student asked about the Ivy League bias in hiring Supreme Court clerks — a practice that Justice Thomas’s conservative colleague, Justice Antonin Scalia, has publicly defended. CT responded:
People like their comfort zone, and we have allowed qualifications to be defined by where you go to school…
Eight of the nine of us [justices] are from the Ivy leagues, so it’s natural that you go back to the Ivy Leagues… I don’t believe they have a monopoly on intelligence. I also don’t believe they have a monopoly on the best kids to clerk…I don’t even think that all of us on the Court should be from the Ivy leagues and from just one part of the country. I have a preference actually for non-Ivy league law clerks, simply because I think clerks should come from a wide range of backgrounds. And I don’t have that pedigree. I’m not a part of this new or faux nobility…
Last time we checked, Thomas was a Yale Law School graduate. But he used this opportunity to talk about his upbringing in Georgia for a bit:
I think there are smart kids a lot of places. My clerks last year were from George Mason, Rutgers, George Washington, and Creighton. My clerks this year are from Harvard, Yale, Utah, and Notre Dame. And they’re really bright kids, but there is a bias. If you look at smart bloggers — or self-proclaimed smart bloggers — they referred to my clerks last year as TTT — ‘third tier trash.’ That’s the attitude that you’re up against.
This year marked the first time SCOTUS has used the word “blog” in an opinion. Thomas’s utterance of the term “TTT” on the record must also be some kind of first (although he appears to have erred regarding what it stands for; it is generally regarded as an acronym for “third-tier toilet,” not “third-tier trash”).
As we mentioned before the jump, your Above the Law editors have never referred to his clerks as TTT. Has Justice Thomas been reading AutoAdmit?
They were absolutely bright, wonderful law clerks and they did an outstanding job… As far as the kids I select, the rule is that you select from right near the top of the class. Because we run pretty hard and you have to have horsepower and you have to be ready. I also look for kids who are self-starters… We have a meeting of the minds early so that everyone understands… I have zero tolerance for mistakes, tardiness or excuses. There is no learning curve. You have to hit the ground running.
You could feel the excitement in the air as the University of Florida students collectively dreamed of a Gator gunner one day showing up for work at One First Street.
Thomas also spent some time addressing two topics near and dear to our readers’ hearts: student debt and law firm layoffs. CT revealed that he didn’t manage to pay off his student loans until his third term on the Court, and only then because his “wife accelerated it — she was tired of these payments to Yale.”
(It likely didn’t help that Thomas never drew in a Biglaw salary. Beyond a few years in-house at the Monsanto company, he has spent his whole career on the government payroll. Of course, these days CT is sitting pretty — not just because of a life-tenured job with a six-figure income, but also thanks to a bestselling, super-lucrative memoir.)
One UF student asked Thomas for advice given the difficult job market out there for law grads right now. He responded:
Oh goodness. I don’t know.
I’m one of those kids who couldn’t get a job out of law school. I had a stack of rejection letters. That’s why I did not wind up in Georgia. I wound up in Jefferson City, Missouri. [Ed. note: He was appointed an assistant attorney general in Missouri after graduating from Yale in 1974.] And that started me on the path to the Supreme Court. Otherwise I’d be a tax lawyer in Georgia.
I really don’t have an answer. I came out of school in a big recession and found it extremely difficult…. What I would say to you is persevere, don’t quit.
You never know where you’ll end up, but a law degree from Yale is certainly a nice lifesaver to have in the dead sea of a recession.
The only time Thomas showed signs of going back into sphinx mode was when a student at Stetson asked about the Citizens United decision on Tuesday:
The opinions speak for themselves… I’m not going to reargue that. People have their own opinion. My job is not to argue about their opinion. It is to write opinions and to decide cases.
In other words, he’s the decider.
P.S. If you have information about Supreme Court law clerk hiring that we have not yet reported — our last clerk hiring round-up appeared here — please email us (subject line: “SCOTUS clerk hiring”). Thanks!
A Conversation with Associate Justice [University of Florida]
Clarence Thomas: State of the Union Too Partisan for a Justice [CBS News]
Audio: Clarence Thomas Defends Supreme Courts Campaign Finance Decision [YouTube]
LiveBlog: Justice Thomas Speaks Live at University of Florida [Josh Blackman's Blog]
Justice Thomas, On the Road Again [BLT]
Justice Thomas Visits Stetson Law [Stetson Law]
1
Why are New Yorkers so pretentious?
–LA Lawyer
Clarence TTThomas
If you don’t go to Yale, you are TTT. There is nothing more to be said about it.
Your welcome
you’re welcomw
CT = 180
WHOKEBE
Good post, especially interesting on a Saturday.
There should be one obligatory SCOTUS post a week (if not more).
Thomas graduated ninth in his class – not top nine percent, but person #9 – from Holy Cross (an excellent small liberal arts college). See:
http://www.oyez.org/justices/clarence_thomas
CT is not TTT. It is not surprising that he got into Yale Law School.
anytime someone has to affirm that the college is a really “excellent school” it probably means it’s a TTT. No one goes has to go around affirming that Yale Harvard or Stanford are “Excellent schools”… Number 9 from Holy Cross…hardly impressive…like being No. 1 from Cooley
anytime someone has to affirm that the college is a really “excellent school” it probably means it’s a TTT. No one has to go around affirming that Yale Harvard or Stanford are “Excellent schools”… Number 9 from Holy Cross…hardly impressive…like being No. 1 from Cooley
anytime someone has to affirm that the college is a really “excellent school” it probably means it’s a TTT. No one has to go around affirming that Yale Harvard or Stanford are “Excellent schools”… Number 9 from Holy Cross…hardly impressive…like being No. 1 from Cooley
More pertinent, where did he end up at Yale? And even more important, what is this man doing on the Supreme Court, other than following Scalia’s lead?
No. 11, 12, & 13. Don’t be hating because you weren’t number 1 at Cooley.
Harvard, Stanford, and Yale = FTW
Everyone else = TTT
11-13, still bitter that you’ve found no other means to assess your self-worth than your admission to an institution?
Sincerely,
Not a Holy Cross grad.
CT is one of the most TTT members of the Court.
great post. interested how he recently paid off his loans, and had trouble finding a job after graduation.
The Supreme Court is TTT. A bunch of philosopher kings who don’t produce or contribute anything and repeatedly deal setbacks to the actual work being done in this country. How is the weather in your ivory tower, CT?
36 YEARS to pay off his student loans? Cripes almighty, what could it have been total in 1974, $35K?
Never lend this guy money.
i get the feeling Lat applied for a SCOTUS clerk position and got denied. true or false?
16–you haven’t read this site much, have you?
People on this site define themselves by their pedigrees and salaries because they have nothing else of value in their lives. Their only purpose in existing is gather all the right brand-names on their resumes, because they are looking for the validation and acceptance they never got from their parents and peers.
Technically, SCOTUS used the word “blog” when it cited the Sentencing Law and Policy Blog in 2005.
21, very true. I read an artilce about him and he said it was a disappointment in his life. He did work for Wachtell though which might even be more insane.
“anytime someone has to affirm that the college is a really “excellent school” it probably means it’s a TTT. No one goes has to go around affirming that Yale Harvard or Stanford are “Excellent schools”… Number 9 from Holy Cross…hardly impressive…like being No. 1 from Cooley”
Got bored, looked it up. It’s a tier one liberal arts college (ranked in the mid-30s). Not a fantastic “wow” factor, but just slightly different than Cooley.
Few, even among educated people, are familiar with which liberal arts schools are top-rated not to mention familiar with half the universities ranked in the top 20. So saying someplace is crappy because it doesn’t have the name recognition of Harvard is somewhat faulty.
Anyway, this is all ancillary.
While it is racist and offensive to assume minority liberals benefited from affirmative action in school admissions, we all know it is not racist or offensive at all to assume minority conservatives benefited from affirmative action in school admissions and to blow them off as another justice’s puppet (even though that isn’t really backed up all by how Thomas votes on the Court).
So, please continue.
14- “other than following Scalia’s lead”
… a common misconception (latent prejudice?). Check out “Supreme Conflict” by Greenburg for some real-world perspective and (gasp!) enjoyable reading.
People in the Northeast do not understand how the legal profession operates in the South. You’re often better off going to a state institution than a top 20 school since you’re likely to have more local alumni connections.
“i was one of those students who couldn’t get a job”
said the guy who got a job the same year he graduated (i.e within 9 months)
anita hill
thomas is TTT
Well, Lat clerked for O’Scannlain on the 9th Circuit, who sends lots of clerks to SCOTUS, so I assume he did apply for a clerkship at 1 First Street.
“said the guy who got a job the same year he graduated (i.e within 9 months)”
. . . working for a Senator, not private sector, much less big law.
If you know enough about the man to know he got some sort of job, you either know exactly what he meant and are obfuscating or are mindlessly parroting some sort of talking point you once heard.
It’s kinda quaint to see Dems throw out something like Anita Hill as an insult though. It’s almost like you expect the other side to forget you defended (to this day) a womanizing, sexually harassing, accused rapist as your President.
Cute.
30, not to mention “lionizing” a womanizing murderer for half a century, and then celebrating his death like it was some great loss to society – i.e. Ted Kennedy.
22,
Thank you for answering my question. New York parents are self-centered and are usually too busy attending charity events and dinner parties. Their social lives and 90 hour work weeks leave their children neglected.
Naturally, their offspring is then driven to obtain the approval they never received from their absent parents. The only way these children believe that they can get parental approval is by attending ivy leagues, working at “peer” law firms, and posting about their greatness on this site.
It’s so empty and pathetic.
–2
14- Actually Clarence Thomas is one of the most influential members of the court, according to the other justices and the clerks. Just because he isn’t constantly seeking public attention like rest of his co-workers, doesn’t mean he doesn’t contribute a lot.
Most importantly, CT is the only justice on the court with any integrity. He is one of the few bright stars in SCOTUS history.
The man is a moron, and he hires moron clerks. So he will continue to be a moron. It’s like the transitive property of SCOTUS.
#20,
Thomas said he paid off his loans on his third term on the court. That would be 1993, roughly 20 years from his graduation in 1974. That sounds like a normal payment plan.
TIP: The one with the fattest wallet wins.
ATL = EPIC FAIL.
one thing people dont tell you when they say they didnt pay off their loans until x years after is that often the intrest rate is lower then they are making on long term investments
If I’m still paying off student loans when I am on the freakin’ Supreme Court, please kill me.
Thomas’ actions speak far louder than his words.
“My clerks last year were from George Mason, Rutgers, George Washington, and Creighton. My clerks this year are from Harvard, Yale, Utah, and Notre Dame.”
Yeah. Read: TTT=TTT, even when given the chance of a lifetime
Breakdown?
Thomas moved from #41, #87, #28, and “N/A” (as a true, unranked, TTT I will *very generously* give Creighton a #101)
Avg: 64.25
to
#2, #1, #45, and #23
Avg: 17.75
That is, roughly speaking, like transferring from Baylor (who? one of several #65s) to Georgetown .. or at least USC (#14, #18).
Enjoy your TTT. Even your champion moved uptown.
21 / 29
Are you cave dwellers? Lat’s turning point in life, the albatross around his neck, the chip on his shoulder, has always been his rejection from a supreme court clerkship. Once he was relegated to serving as a government bitch lawyer in Jersey, he developed into a tranny named “Underneath the robes” and started a pink webpage bashing on judges. Then his vagina started annoying him so he did an interview with Jeff Toobin, outed himself (thus spake wonkette: “that catty bitch is a man?”) and here we are, watching a slow moving train wreck as he walzes his way into a sexual liason with justices kennedy and thomas.
Excuse me, Justice Thomas….is that a pubic hair on your mic??
I’m certainly no huge fan of CT, and I recognize that his venture outside of the Ivy League has been motivated more by a desire to seek ideologically pure clerks than by any mission to give the brilliant anyman a shot at greatness. That said, if you you didn’t clerk on One First Street, you can’t win the prestigue w—e game against those who did. Doesn’t mean you might not be a better lawyer, but you have no business doubting them based solely on their resumes. (It would be like Lane Kiffin saying Bill Walsh never did anything that impressive.)
And if you did clerk on One First Street and find yourself needing to trash the credentials of other SCOTUS Clerks in anonymous blog comments, then you’re a really sad individual, and I feel sorry for you.
What is he doing running around country giving speaches for, is it any wonder their last decision was obsene(corporate person).This shows the door was open to correct a wrong a clerk made back in the 1800s,that started this mess.To embarrassed or what.My suggestion to people is to realize they are human beings and not leagal persons we are talking two entities here one BODY!
If you refer to Justice Thomas as a moron, it reveals you to be one who has not spent any time with what he has written.
“what he has written”? or “what his clerks have written?”
33 = overstatement of the year
40 for the win.
Interesting psychobabble, 40. Have you ever met David Lat? “Lat” sounds like an extension of your own mind.
Let’s just say 40 makes sense.
It is awkward that Lat calls them The Elect, even as he couldn’t break into their ranks. Does it bother him that a conservative justice with dubious credentials wouldn’t accept him, while Yale and WLRK did? Then said justice starts a movement to recruit from TTTs, just to make a point? Ouch.
Just reapply, Lat.
I am a Gator alum and will become the first Gator SCOTUS clerk. The road has been purely uphill, but the foundations are being laid. I look forward to the process and to serving the judiciary in that capacity in the future.
As someone who went to H (law school) and Y (undergrad), I have to say being No. 9 from Holy Cross is NOT impressive. A Marshall Scholar (like Justice Breyer) who went to Stanford Undergrad and Harvard Law is impressive, or a person who graduated No. 1 from Columbia Law School (like Justice Ginsburg) or someone like Justice Roberts who graduated from Harvard law and undergrad and clerked for Justice Rehnquist, that’s impressive.
People who are impressed that CT was No 9 at Holy Cross probably did not go to H-Y-S and are use to being surrounded by mediocre TTT fellow students.
This had to hurt for David to post. The son of privilege – his parents were immigrant doctors – who attended Catholic prep schools, Harvard, and YLS could not land a SCOTUS clerkship. But yet a Yale Law grad on the high court will gladly hire non-T14s to serve as his clerks. And to top it off, Lat’s political philosophy probably best resembles that of Thomas.
I am sorry that your life was ruined by this catastrophic event, David. Now go tell us about Roberts’ strong chin and his chiseled pecs pressed against his black robe!
“As someone who went to H (law school) and Y (undergrad), I have to say being No. 9 from Holy Cross is NOT impressive.”
Wow, what an insightful comment.
You start off like that and you expect anybody on this thread to assume you’re anything other than a school snob? I’m stunned.
I’m sure were all enlightened by your academic expertise, especially the guy who went to Yale Law and is on the USSC; after all, it’s not like half this board attended top undergrads and law schools and is in as much of a position to know anything this about as you are.
52 – I wouldn’t call Lat privileged. He’s a minority / person of color. He’s gay. His parents are Filipino immigrants. He grew up in a “blue collar” town, according to this NYT profile:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/technology/22njCOVER.html
Lat has done well for himself considering all the obstacles he has faced in life.
BTW, I’m kinda surprised to see Thomas has had a Yale law clerk at all recently.
School snobbery and TTTs aside, he apparently has a pretty serious grudge against the school. Besides not graduating with a job, he didn’t like the way he was treated there and how the faculty then acted during his confirmation process. He turned down sitting for a portrait after he did get confirmed and has insinuated his law degree is still sitting in an envelope somewhere in his basement. So, he’s somewhat antagonistic towards the school.
54 = Lat
51 = deathly insecure that people might be smarter than him, even though he went to H and Y!
The 40 – 49 – 52 psychobabble trilogy is starting to creep me out. I think I’m going to start carrying a concealed weapon.
40-quite possibly the funniest comment ive read on ATTTL in a while.
All of you HYSers who sincerely think that no top young legal minds worthy of SCTOS come from TTTs and non-T14 schools are delusional.
To the H/Y grad,
Many people who apply to college and law school are simply unaware of the prestige game. These are normal people. Yet, SOMEHOW, they end up in BigLaw and in other areas of practice where they make boatloads of money. What gives?
Nonetheless, several HYS grads are unemployed right now. How prestigious is that?
50, I like your spirit! That’s the response we should be seeing :)
uhhh…no one said HYS degree guarantees employment even in a recession…but sure beats degrees from other law schools, whose graduates are also unemployed…and i betcha there’s more of those people than HYS…
and never said that you have to be a graduate of HYS to be a good legal mind…just that CT’s credential are not impressive by standard of HYS…my class alone contained Marshall and Rhodes scholars, PHDs galore from Ivy schools, MD from john hopkins, valedictorian of top 15 universities, so being No. 8 at Holy Cross is only impressive if you were applying for legal counsel at the Department of Sanitation in Trenton
H-Y Grad
What is a Creighton?
All you Lat bashers,
First, you read his site. In fact, you probably check it a few times a day. Pause to appreciate the irony.
Two, bash away at Lat all you want. I’m guessing he’s making bank nowadays. He has solid brand equity.
If insulting him makes you sleep well at night, ok. But, if we review the facts, it looks a lot like jealousy…
“just that CT’s credential are not impressive by standard of HYS”
Dude, he went to Yale Law School and is on the Supreme Court. You’re not. Quit pretending you’re in any position to cast aspersions on this guy’s intellect. You’re a peon compared to this guy just as you are with everybody else at the very top of this profession–as am I.
While HYP indicates you were a top student in high school and HYS indicates you were a top student in college, many people blow off school and wind up being pretty mediocre people, both intellectually and career wise. If you’re 9th in your class in a decent college you’re superior to most of them.
I went to CCN (granted, not HYS) and we had MD from Harvard Medical School, PhDs from top programs, a bunch of Ivy League grads (including HYP) and while they were all intelligent enough people, they just weren’t that brilliant. Smart? Sure, but compared to the top people at my undergrad (a top but not spectacular public school), the HYP people just weren’t that impressive. I’ve met my fair share of HYS people as well and, again, at least as students, they’re smart enough but just not that brilliant.
Seriously, quit being a douche.
Why does David Lat suck up to conservatives? Doesn’t he know that they HATE gays.
Clarence Thomas must be the dumbest Supreme Court Justice ever. He was nominated only b/c of his ideology.
Maybe I should stop posting the obvious.
Ok…why do people accuse me of statements I never made.
I never questioned CT’s qualification to be on the Supremes. Simply stated that his resume even with YLS and Holy Cross degree is not so impressive in the context of other HYS students’ resume.
In any case, one does not become a Supreme purely base on merits…it is obviously a political appointment, not just with CT but ALL of them.
If brilliant legal thinking was the sole basis for being a Supreme, I could think of other judges on both left and right who deserve to be on the Supremes… Posner, McConnell, Reinhardt, Kozinski, Cass Sunstein, Lawrence Tribe, Luttig etc….
As for mediocre people being at HYS, sure, but a lot more of them are at non HYS schools….
“I never questioned CT’s qualification to be on the Supremes. Simply stated that his resume even with YLS and Holy Cross degree is not so impressive in the context of other HYS students’ resume.”
68, it’s because (at least what my argument is) is that the average HYS student’s resume just isn’t that impressive.
Sure, there are Rhodes Scholars and Marshall Scholars, but they aren’t the norm. There only could be a couple tens of each at most at any one time. An MD from Johns Hopkins is not the norm. Ivy League PhDs would be more common, but still not the norm.
The norm are mostly regular Ivy League graduates, including a pretty decent amount of non-Ivy League tier one grads, who got good grades and high LSAT scores but otherwise just aren’t that impressive.
Now, among that group, graduating ninth in your class at a decent liberal school is not impressive, but is not out of place either and that second part seems to be there in general tone of your posts, which is why I’m arguing with it.
- 65
@ those people asking how much Yale Law tuition was back in the 70s.
Check this link – http://www.yale.edu/oir/book_numbers_updated/L1_Univ_Tuitions_1976_1999.pdf
Tuition was 4150 a YEAR in 1976-77. Let’s just assume that the average from 1971-74 was 4K. It cost him all of 12K in tuition over three years. I have no idea how much he racked up in undergrad and in living expenses, but assuming it was similar, there’s another 16K. I don’t know what COL was back then, but obviously it was way less than it is now. Simply put, either he was making a smart move due to great investments or he didn’t know how to manage his finances (as most people do not).
Guys in my high school used to call onside kicks to start the second half of the super bowl all the time.
Pretty epic that “TTT” has reached the Supreme Court. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that CT posts on Autoadmit.
Speaking of TTT, I think Dead Horse Media bought the template and servers for this website at K-Mart. Layout sucks and the site is sluggish.
Haha 50, No Gator clerks yet?
Looks like the Bulldogs CAN best the Gators. Unless Tebow goes to law school.
alright ATL, that does it:
fuck you
the blatant anti GW trolilng is getting out of control.
a couple of quick thoughts:
-GW median admit: 167 / 3.75 (only 15-17 schools nationwide have higher admit #ers)
-T18 by NLJ250 placement
-creighton, mason, rutgers (and notre dame, for that matter) do not compare. don’t ever lump us in with them again. you do, and you just may die in a horrible, horrible fire.
carry on!
75,
You didn’t even read the story, did you?
He should’ve been wiped out with that whole sexual harassment scandal. No plea bargaining for thomas http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2010/02/08/to-plea-or-not-to-plea-that-is-the-bargaining-question/
39,
Maybe I missed something, but are your saying usnews is per se better at indicating professional status than a Supreme Court Justice?
I would rather graduate from Creighton and clerk for CT than graduate no. 1 from y-h-s without clerking for SCOTUS.
You would see there is no debate were you to lay off the ATL/TTT/FTW cool-aid.
78,
1. it is “Kool-aid” not cool-aid.
2. You did miss something: the point. Even where a SCOTUS justice intentionally deviates from the USNWR top-ranked schools on principle, he returns, tail between his legs, to where the actual talent is.
3. Tail between his legs? Yes. He actually hired from Yale, a school he despises, for the first time in years. It is his 5th in the last decade.
4. This is far more remarkable than the comments he makes at a law school on a given day.
5. You’d rather rely on dumb luck (ha!) than your wits? Keep buying those lottery tickets, chump.
“We hope that comment was not inspired by these pages. In 2008, CT’s law clerks came from George Mason, Rutgers, George Washington, and Creighton law schools. If there were any ‘TTT’ references to them here, they were in the comments section and did not come from our ‘smart’ mouths, er, fingers.”
That seems so enlightened and egalitarian of you, ATL. Bravo!
“With all due respect to the good people at Case Western, Biglaw types have a hard time suspending their disbelief that even a fictional top law firm would grab an associate from the #55 ranked law school in the country.”
Oh yeah. I forgot, you guys are pompous dorks. Thanks for trying to play both sides though. You should ultimately pick one, and I would just go for the thoughtless snarkiness, as it is already in your wheelhouse.