Michigan's law school, Thomas says, "seeks only a facade -- it is sufficient that the class looks right, even if it does not perform right." To erect such a facade, the law school "tantalizes unprepared students with the promise of a University of Michigan degree and all of the opportunities that it affords. These overmatched students take the bait, only to find that they cannot succeed in the cauldron of competition." The kind of racial discrimination that Michigan's guilty white liberals (my phrase, not Thomas') try with mock beneficence to impose becomes "cruel farce" (Thomas' phrase, not mine). "The majority of blacks are admitted to the law school because of discrimination, and because of this policy all are tarred as undeserving."
In a pusillanimous age, the courage and common sense of Clarence Thomas stand out a mile. Black "leaders," who should be his biggest fans, can't stand being in the same room with him. Yet over and over, as in the Michigan case, he kicks aside the political junk, disclosing the constitutional truths that are at stake: not least the truth that our Constitution (he quotes the first Justice John M. Harlan to this effect) is "color-blind."
Here's an oddity: For all that Clarence Thomas is among our shining witnesses for equality and against racial prejudgment, his colleagues half the time don't get it. Just a little racial discrimination, they keep saying, just the right amount!
As if a "right" amount of discrimination, constitutionally speaking, weren't just the same as a leadless pencil or a pig with wings.