Clarence Thomas: Affirmative Action Policies Like Slavery

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke on Monday comparing the affirmative action program at the University of Texas to Slavery.

Justice Thomas said regarding Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin that the Universities admissions policy causes more harm to blacks, hispanics, and other minority groups than it does good:

“Although cloaked in good intentions, the University’s racial tinkering harms the very people it claims to be helping,” He wrote, continuing with his comparison of the policy with slavery and segregation:

“Slaveholders argued that slavery was a ‘positive good’ that civilized blacks and elevated them in every dimension of life. A century later, segregationists similarly asserted that segregation was not only benign, but good for black students.”

Justice Clarence Thomas has been notorious for his opposition to race being taken into account for college admissions. Monday’s comments by him definitely reaffirm that sentiment.

He wrote at length in the paper, making reference to the connection between affirmative action college admissions and slavery.

Here are some vital excerpts from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas:

“Following in these inauspicious footsteps, the University would have us believe that its discrimination is likewise benign. I think the lesson of history is clear enough: Racial discrimination is never benign.”

“The University’s professed good intentions cannot excuse its outright racial discrimination any more than such intentions justified the now-denounced arguments of slaveholders and segregationists.”

“The worst forms of racial discrimination in this Nation have always been accompanied by straight-faced representations that discrimination helped minorities.”

You can read more excerpts from Justice Thomas as reported in the Washington Post.

Do you agree with Justice Clarence Thomas’s views on affirmative action? What do you think of the admissions policy at the University of Texas At Austin? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.