Judge Amul Thapar, who serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, defended Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in light of recent scrutiny in a lecture at the Notre Dame Law School on Tuesday.
Thapar, who was on former President Donald Trump’s shortlist for a 2018 Supreme Court vacancy, praised Thomas for his jurisprudence, care for people and presence as a “strong Black voice.”
In June, Thapar released his book, “The People’s Justice: Clarence Thomas and the Constitutional Stories that Define Him.”
Thomas has recently come under fire from critics for allegedly violating court ethics. Thapar said criticism is nothing new for Thomas, who has experienced it since his nomination to the court over 30 years ago.
“I think the reason that the critics keep going after him is the amount of influence he has,” Thapar said.
Thapar, like Thomas, identifies as an originalist. Thapar and Thomas’ originalist judicial interpretation broadly means they try to identify what the framers intended when writing the Constitution.
Thomas’ commitment to originalism has had a large impact on jurisprudence, Thapar explained.
“He puts originalism first and foremost, nothing else comes first,” he said.
Thomas’ strict adherence to originalism even influenced famed originalist and Thomas’ former colleague, the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
“And by sticking to his principles, he’s moved justices and he’s moved jurisprudence,” Thapar said.
The book details several cases that Thapar said combat common attacks on originalism and Thomas. Namely, he hopes they dispel the criticism that originalism favors the powerful over the weak. Thapar said the cases in the book are examples that prove this narrative is backwards.
“What I realized is most often, not always, but most often the opposite is true,” he said. “And the cases in the book prove it. Why is the opposite true? All he’s trying to do is reach the original meaning. It makes sense because the document, the Constitution, our laws, are written often to protect us from predatory individuals, predatory government and predatory corporations.”
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