February 11, 2009 4:09 PM
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Clarence Thomas: The Justice Nobody Knows
But at Yale, Thomas sensed he was being treated differently by teachers and fellow students. The law school had a program that set aside a certain number of slots for minority students.
"I honestly, honestly believed that Yale thought that having a kid who came from working people in the South, who had grown up through segregation, that this kid who had prospered, who had done well every single place he'd ever been, whether an all-white school, all-black school, he's always done well. He will do well here. And it will benefit both him and Yale," Thomas says. "That's what I thought. Well, that isn't what it was converted to."
"It was converted to, 'Well, you're here because you're black,'" Thomas explains.
Thomas did well at Yale, graduating somewhere in the middle of his class, but he says it was the first time anybody had tried to put him in a box because of his race, and whatever benefits he accrued from being there were tarnished when it came time to graduate.
"You know, I was in debt. I needed a job. And I couldn't get a job," Thomas says.
"Not even with a Yale law degree?" Kroft asks.
"I couldn't get a job. And I just saw the discounting of my degree happen before my eyes," Thomas says.
Asked why he thinks that is, Thomas says, "That degree meant one thing for whites and another thing for blacks…it was discounted."
"You write in the book that your Yale degree was worth 15 cents," Kroft remarks.
"Well, you know Steve, I have still a 15 cents sticker on the frame that my law degree is in," Thomas says. "It's tainted. So I just leave it in the basement."
Thomas finally found a $10,000-a-year job in Jefferson City, Mo., working for the state's attorney general, John Danforth.
"And the biggest negative was that it didn't pay much money. And he was a Republican. But, I had to swallow hard, go out to Missouri and work for a dreaded Republican," Thomas says.
"You were still a liberal Democrat at that point," Kroft asks.
"I was never a liberal. I was radical. I was cynical. I was negative. But, I was never a liberal. I always saw that as too lukewarm for me," Thomas says.
Thomas would follow Danforth to Washington and in 1980 switched parties to vote for Ronald Reagan, whose beliefs in hard work and personal initiative, Thomas says, were more consistent with the way he had been brought up.
But in many ways he was still a radical. Over time he came to believe that government programs designed to help blacks were ultimately demeaning and detrimental to them. He rejected decades of civil rights dogma on the grounds that it created a cult of victimization, and implied that blacks required special treatment in order to succeed, postponing the day when all men and women would truly be viewed as equals.
"You're a huge believer in self reliance. And I get sort of a subtext from you. Tell me if I'm wrong. That you think that the black community could use a few more leaders preaching that?" Kroft asks.
"You've been down here long enough to see who raised me and what my grandfather. What approach would he take?" Thomas says, laughing. "It'd be get out there and work. The problem for me isn't that everybody agrees with him or me. But, that they think they have the exclusive providence of how to approach it. That I am to be destroyed because I won't drink that Kool-Aid or because I don't follow in this cult-like way something that blacks are supposed to believe. I have an opinion. It seems as though the problem with me and other people with our opinions is that we are veering away from the black gospel that we're supposed to adhere to."
Copyright 2009 CBS. All rights reserved. "I honestly, honestly believed that Yale thought that having a kid who came from working people in the South, who had grown up through segregation, that this kid who had prospered, who had done well every single place he'd ever been, whether an all-white school, all-black school, he's always done well. He will do well here. And it will benefit both him and Yale," Thomas says. "That's what I thought. Well, that isn't what it was converted to."
"It was converted to, 'Well, you're here because you're black,'" Thomas explains.
Thomas did well at Yale, graduating somewhere in the middle of his class, but he says it was the first time anybody had tried to put him in a box because of his race, and whatever benefits he accrued from being there were tarnished when it came time to graduate.
"You know, I was in debt. I needed a job. And I couldn't get a job," Thomas says.
"Not even with a Yale law degree?" Kroft asks.
"I couldn't get a job. And I just saw the discounting of my degree happen before my eyes," Thomas says.
Asked why he thinks that is, Thomas says, "That degree meant one thing for whites and another thing for blacks…it was discounted."
"You write in the book that your Yale degree was worth 15 cents," Kroft remarks.
"Well, you know Steve, I have still a 15 cents sticker on the frame that my law degree is in," Thomas says. "It's tainted. So I just leave it in the basement."
Thomas finally found a $10,000-a-year job in Jefferson City, Mo., working for the state's attorney general, John Danforth.
"And the biggest negative was that it didn't pay much money. And he was a Republican. But, I had to swallow hard, go out to Missouri and work for a dreaded Republican," Thomas says.
"You were still a liberal Democrat at that point," Kroft asks.
"I was never a liberal. I was radical. I was cynical. I was negative. But, I was never a liberal. I always saw that as too lukewarm for me," Thomas says.
Thomas would follow Danforth to Washington and in 1980 switched parties to vote for Ronald Reagan, whose beliefs in hard work and personal initiative, Thomas says, were more consistent with the way he had been brought up.
But in many ways he was still a radical. Over time he came to believe that government programs designed to help blacks were ultimately demeaning and detrimental to them. He rejected decades of civil rights dogma on the grounds that it created a cult of victimization, and implied that blacks required special treatment in order to succeed, postponing the day when all men and women would truly be viewed as equals.
"You're a huge believer in self reliance. And I get sort of a subtext from you. Tell me if I'm wrong. That you think that the black community could use a few more leaders preaching that?" Kroft asks.
"You've been down here long enough to see who raised me and what my grandfather. What approach would he take?" Thomas says, laughing. "It'd be get out there and work. The problem for me isn't that everybody agrees with him or me. But, that they think they have the exclusive providence of how to approach it. That I am to be destroyed because I won't drink that Kool-Aid or because I don't follow in this cult-like way something that blacks are supposed to believe. I have an opinion. It seems as though the problem with me and other people with our opinions is that we are veering away from the black gospel that we're supposed to adhere to."
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