The Constitutional Law program at George Washington University Law School has lost one of the greatest assets it has ever offered students.
Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and the foremost expert in originalist legal interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, will no longer be instructing there.
Thomas’ decision was announced by co-instructor Professor Gregory Maggs.
Maggs, in an email to students, wrote, “Unfortunately, I am writing with some sad news: Justice Thomas has informed me that he is unavailable to co-teach the seminar this fall,” Maggs said “I know that this is disappointing. I am very sorry.”
“The seminar has not been canceled but I will now be the sole instructor,” he added in the group email.
Thomas’ seminar at GWU has become a subject of great controversy as the once-prestigious institution drifts further into radical-left ‘woke’ territory. Left-leaning student organizations began calling for Thomas’ ouster almost immediately after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling was released.
A change.org petition calling for Justice Thomas’ removal, replete with baseless and/or demonstrably false claims about the justice and his wife, Virginia ‘Ginni’ Thomas, received over 11,000 signatures. The petition organizer, Jon Kay, posted, “Guys. We did it. Clarence Thomas will no longer be teaching at George Washington University Law School.”
The change.org petition reads: “With the recent Supreme Court decision that has stripped the right to bodily autonomy of people with wombs, and with his explicit intention to further strip the rights of queer people and remove the ability for people to practice safe sex without fear of pregnancy, it is evident that the employment of Clarence Thomas at George Washington University is completely unacceptable. While also factoring in his wife’s part in the attempted coup in January of 2021, Judge Thomas is actively making life unsafe for thousands of students on our campus (not to mention thousands of campuses across the country). Make your voice heard and help us kick Clarence Thomas out of Foggy Bottom.”
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George Washington University Provost Christopher Bracey and law Dean Dayna Bowen Matthew had already announced in a letter to the student body that while Justice Thomas’ views “do not represent” the stance of the university and that Thomas’ contract would not be terminated. And indeed, Thomas’ announcement simply explained that he would be “unavailable”.
Thomas authored a groundbreaking concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the previous Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood decisions, returning abortion jurisprudence to the states after 49 years of unconstitutional federal dictate.
Within the text of his concurring opinion, Justice Thomas eviscerated the fallacious legal concept of “substantive due process” upon which other major left-leaning rulings are built, such as Hodges v. Obergefell, which imposed a federal ruling on gay marriage; Lawrence v. Texas, which decided the “right to engage in private, consensual sexual acts”; and Griswold v. Connecticut, which provided for the right of married persons to obtain contraception.
Justice Thomas then made a suggestion that has enraged leftist activists nationwide: “For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous.'”
But contrary to the change.org petition, Justice Thomas has cited no “explicit’ intentions to remove the rights of any Americans in his concurring opinion. Rather, he stated that the particular rulings are legally erroneous in construction and that new rulings are required.
Many on the left have subsequently raised the alarm that the majority conservative Supreme Court can and may hear challenges on these three cases and reverse them on the grounds Thomas has raised, although they deliberately chose not to in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. As Thomas himself noted, “The Court today declines to disturb substantive due process jurisprudence generally or the doctrine’s application in other, specific contexts. ”
The petition also made note of the unfounded accusations that have been levied by many on the left at Ginny Thomas, the justice’s wife, who is a renowned attorney in her own right and a conservative activist.
Mrs. Thomas has recently found herself in the crosshairs of the illegitimate “Unselect Committee” to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol after text messages she exchanged with the former White House Chief of Staff were used in a dubious attempt to link her to the Jan. 6th Capitol insurrection.
There appears to be no basis for the assertion that Justice Thomas chose to discontinue his relationship with George Washington University Law School for anything other than the reason he provided: that he is simply unavailable.
Just because his decision followed the change.org petition doesn’t mean it was caused by the petition. Backing down from a mob of angry leftists would be quite out of character for Thomas, as PragerU reminded Twitter users this week, posting, “Clarence Thomas has never bowed to the mob.”
Clarence Thomas has never bowed to the mob. pic.twitter.com/mcSeuWZi3C
— PragerU (@prageru) July 25, 2022
There is another truth that George Washington University is about to discover: Get woke and go (in this case intellectually) broke.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
