During a Sunday appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Democratic New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez expressed strong disapproval of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas’ recent judicial opinion.
Ocasio-Cortez deemed Thomas’ reference to being black in America as “profoundly insulting.” Thomas had authored an opinion that included a critique of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissenting opinion on the topic of race-based college admissions.
In particular, Thomas criticized Jackson’s perspective regarding all black individuals being viewed as “victims.” This exchange highlights the ongoing debate surrounding race and affirmative action within the context of the Supreme Court’s decision-making process.
Thomas wrote, “Justice Jackson uses her broad observations about statistical relationships between race and select measures of health, wealth and well-being to label all blacks as victims. Her desire to do so is unfathomable to me. It is an insult to individual achievement and cancerous to young minds seeking to push through barriers … Their race is not to blame for everything — good or bad — that happens in their lives.”
Ocasio-Cortez said Thomas’ concurring opinion is “profoundly insulting” to Jackson.
“What Justice Clarence Thomas wrote there, I believe is profoundly disrespectful … to his colleague,” she said. “It includes sweeping assumptions about her worldview where as when you look at what the response was from Justice Ketanji Brown, we saw that her dissent was grounded in fact, was grounded in facts of the case. It did not disparage Clarence Thomas’ overall worldview, but as a matter of fact, a nuanced critique, of his analysis of the facts of the case. But for him to come out and insinuate that her opinion is due to some sort of inferior or less-than-really-thought-out of a stance I think it’s profoundly insulting and I think that he really demonstrated his character, frankly, and his worldview in that critique himself.”
Jackson wrote in her dissenting opinion, “Gulf-sized race-based gaps exist with respect to the health, wealth, and well-being of American citizens. They were created in the distant past, but have indisputably been passed down to the present day through the generations.”
The case was brought against students applying to Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, who deemed the institutions’ race-based affirmative action policies as discriminatory. The court sided with the plaintiffs, ruling these policies are a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Thomas has been subject to constant racial attacks by the political left and liberal media. MSNBC anchor Joy Reid once referred to the justice as “Uncle Clarence” in November 2020, a reference to the deeply offensive label, “Uncle Tom.” “The View” co-host Joy Behar claimed in May that Thomas and Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott do not understand racism.
