Clarence Thomas

Clarence Thomas, born in 1948, American jurist, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Born in Savannah, Georgia, he earned an A.B. degree from Holy Cross College and the J.D. from Yale Law School before taking a job as assistant attorney general of Missouri (1974-1977). As assistant secretary for civil rights in the U.S. Department of Education (1981-1982) and chairman of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1982-1989) he earned a reputation as an outspoken black conservative who opposed minority preference programs. He was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1989, and nominated by President George Bush to the Supreme Court in July 1991, replacing the retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall. Thomas's already controversial confirmation hearings were jarred by allegations of sexual harassment brought against Thomas by Anita Hill, a law professor who had worked for him in two federal agencies during the 1980s. Adamantly rejecting Hill's accounts of his alleged misconduct, Thomas described the nationally televised proceedings as a “high-tech lynching” engineered by liberal opponents. The Senate confirmed him in October 1991 by a 52 to 48 vote.