Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, of the Supreme Court of the United States, honored the Portland legal community by visiting the University of Portland and the Historic Pioneer Courthouse, home to three judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Father E. William Beauchamp, President of the University of Portland, and Ninth Circuit Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain coordinated the visit of Justice Thomas, which was sponsored by the Garaventa Center for Catholic Intellectual Life and American Culture.

During his visit to the University, Justice Thomas was greeted by President Beauchamp before touring the University campus and visiting with Constitutional Law students. That afternoon, the Justice spoke to a crowd of 1,200 in the University’s Chiles Center, an event titled “A Conversation with U. S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, ” which featured the Justice’s answering questions from University of Portland political science professors Gary Malecha and William Curtis. Following the session, the Justice attended the annual Red Mass in the University’s Chapel of Christ the Teacher, presided over by The Most Reverend Alexander K. Sample, Archbishop of Portland, before finally taking part in a private reception and dinner for the legal community.

Justice Thomas arrived at the historic Pioneer Courthouse around noon the next day when Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain greeted him and they were joined by Judge Edward Leavy and, later, the Justice’s wife, Virginia Lamp Thomas, for lunch in Judge O’Scannlain’s chambers. Judge Susan P. Graber was out of town on judicial business. Lunch was prepared by Ms. Brenda Hart, Judicial Assistant to Judge O’Scannlain, and included quiche, sausage rolls, hashbrowns, green salad, raspberry sorbet, and sparkling cranapple cider. Afterward, Judge O’Scannlain led the Justice on a tour of the courthouse along with Judge Leavy and Robert M. Walch, Senior Deputy Clerk for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge O’Scannlain pointed out and discussed the interpretive panels placed throughout the courthouse, illustrating the history of the United States Courts, the Ninth Circuit, and the building itself. During the tour, the Justice also visited Judge Leavy’s and Judge Graber’s chambers, meeting and posing for photographs with the Judges’ law clerks and courthouse staff along the way. Justice Thomas admired the portraits of predecessor and current Ninth Circuit Judges, the restored second floor courtroom, the library, and the historic postal lobby, pausing briefly to sign the courthouse guest book before departing.

Press Coverage I

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
Visits The University Of Portland

By Casey Parks, The Oregonian
(Reprinted With Permission) September 19th, 2013

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas rarely visits the West Coast. He made the journey to the University of Portland, where he spoke Thursday, because he made a promise to E. William Beauchamp, the Catholic school’s president.

“Some years ago, Father Beauchamp did me a favor to help me help someone I care deeply about,” Thomas said. “I promised him I’d come to the University of Portland one day. It probably caused him more trouble than he wanted.”

The “someone” was in the crowd, a junior named Dakota Garza. The Supreme Court justice never mentioned her by name or told the details of her story, but much of his talk helped to shed light on why they connected.

Thomas is one of the country’s most controversial public figures, known among legal experts as the century’s most conservative judge. He’s attracted protests and ire in locations far less liberal than Portland. But there was no sign of trouble as Thomas spoke to a crowd of 1,200 Thursday. A Q&A stuck to light questions. The audience laughed as Thomas cracked self-deprecating jokes and told stories about his hardscrabble youth.

Political Science professor Gary Malecha and assistant professor William Curtis led a discussion with the justice that included questions about his Catholic studies, sports teams and which late justices Thomas would invite to dinner.

“I would have them invite me,” Thomas joked before naming Justice John Marshall Harlan, who wrote “an exquisite dissent” in Plessy v. Ferguson, an 1896 decision affirming the “separate but equal” doctrine used to justify racial segregation.

He said he wished he had spent more time with Justices Thurgood Marshall and Justice Byron White. He said he’d let the others “rest in peace” because being a justice would have been hard enough.

“This job has an amazing way of humbling you,” Thomas said. “You realize how small you are when you’re sitting in your office alone, when you have read through all the briefs and you must vote. You don’t get to hem and haw. You must vote. You must decide.”

The professors didn’t ask about those votes. Their questions rarely veered into political territory, and when they did, Thomas negotiated around them.

“If the founding fathers came back and saw what we have today, would they be surprised, pleased?” Malecha asked.

“I think most of what they say would be bleeped out,” Thomas answered.

Between jokes, Thomas talked about his life. The road from tiny Pin Point, Ga., where he shared a one bedroom with his grandfather and brother, to the highest court was long and hard, he said. But he drew strength from the Irish nuns who taught him school, who told him that African-Americans were inherently equal to white people.

“I read these narratives about the South, and they all have us crawling through dirt, and when we’re not crawling, we’re running from the Klan,” he said. “I lived with people that were positive and reinforcing and directed us in a certain way.”

Because of the nuns’ influence, Thomas said he has spent his life trying to similarly inspire “kids from modest backgrounds, kids whose parents had to decide between the rent and braces.”

“They are the people who reflect the American dream,” he said. “They don’t need you to carry them. They just need a part of your life to give them guidance.”

Which is how he wound up making a promise to the school’s president in 2011.

Beauchamp was working in his office that summer when Thomas called him out of the blue. Thomas said he had met a young woman who had been homeless but worked hard and earned good grades at a Medford High School. Garza's dream was to attend the University of Portland’s nursing program, Thomas said. She'd won a handful of scholarships, but not enough to cover $37,000 a year in tuition plus room and board.

Thomas asked Beauchamp if the school and the Horatio Alger Association, a nonprofit of which Thomas is a member, could make up the difference.

Garza was in the audience Thursday, laughing along with the rest of the crowd. When she starts hospital intern- ships for nursing next year, she’ll do so without debt. She left alone, smiling.

Press Coverage II

Clarence Thomas Visits University of Portland

By Kate Stringer, The Beacon (Reprinted With Permission) September 20th, 2013

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas covered a wide array of topics at a townhall-style discussion in the Chiles Center Thursday, including the complexities of Supreme Court cases, his challenging life journey and Cornhusker jokes.

Yet Thomas always directed the conversation towards the students.

Political science professors Gary Malecha and William Curtis, along with five students, asked Thomas questions in front of an audience of 1200 people, according to UP Marketing.

“I can’t tell you I had some plan because I had no plan,” Thomas said, when describing his career path. “The road from Georgia to here was long, hard and lonely. There are times when you are left alone with just your dreams.”

From his start in Pin Point Ga., Thomas said he was gifted with the truth of equality he learned from Irish nuns at his elementary school.

“’The whole premise of neutralizing segregation was from the nuns: ‘You were created inherently equal by God,’” Thomas said.

Thomas translated this positive message he learned from the nuns to a message of hope for students.

“We should say to young people to ingest positive things. We have an obligation… to have some glimmer of hope,” Thomas said. “Don’t poison (students) with contaminated attitudes. We don’t have a right to spread that to kids.”

These words did not go unheard by the hopeful college students in Chiles. Junior Emma Englund, one of the students who asked Thomas a question, found Thomas’ advice to hope inspiring for her goal of going to law school.

“I liked when he talked about law clerks, he was very into having smart hard-working people,” Englund said. “People get so into, like he was saying, the glitzy positions: going to the best law school, being all flashy and outspoken, all those characteristics that don’t really matter if you don’t have the underlying (characteristics of) smart and hardworking.”

Thomas shared that his life was far from glitzy. His previous jobs ranged from “busting suds” to cutting grass, yet Thomas said he “never had a job that didn’t teach me something.”

Co-director of the Garaventa center Karen Eifler was most inspired by Thomas’ message of hard work and hope.

“The implications of hope that’s grounded in working hard, finding out facts, deep reading, listening,” Eifler said. “How important it is to be open to surprises.”

The discussion was followed by the annual Red Mass, a Catholic tradition that prays for all professionals who work with law and administering justice, in the Chapel of Christ the Teacher.

Thomas attended a dinner with the law community after the Mass.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Brenda Hart, Judicial Assistant to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, for the beautiful luncheon served in honor of Justice Thomas.

This Commemorative Booklet is a publication of the Office of the Clerk
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Cathy A. Catterson, Circuit and Court of Appeals Executive
Molly Dwyer, Clerk of Court
Robert M. Walch, Senior Deputy Clerk, Northern Division

Contributors

Dustin Mills, Deputy Clerk
Caleb Huegel, Intern, Office of the Clerk
Mitch Gaylord, Photographer