We are all equal again, right?

[GMDino]

(07-09-2023, 11:55 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Did he benefit from it?  The PBS special cited in the tweet doesn't express that, and, in fact, it grated on Thomas that people assumed he was there because of affirmative action and not based on merit and ability.





Seems rather logical that a man or woman who earned their way into a prestigious school through hard work and ability would resent being associated with people who would not have gotten in without being allowed lower qualifications by dint of their ethnicity.  Citing a source and not even understanding it isn't a good look for the original tweeter.

https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-clarence-thomas-go-yale-under-affirmative-action-policy-1810180

Quote:Several reports from Yale officials and representatives confirmed that the university followed an affirmative action policy at the time Thomas attended its law school.



A 1991 New York Times article about Thomas reported how Yale University officials said Thomas was admitted to its law school "under an explicit affirmative action plan with the goal of having blacks and other minority members make up about 10 percent of the entering class."


Professor Abraham S. Goldstein, dean of the law school, from 1970 to 1975, was quoted by the Times as saying: "We did adopt an affirmative action program and it was pretty clearly stated."


A 1994 Yale Alumni Magazine article underlines this, stating: "Like most American universities, Yale in the 1960s and '70s embarked on an aggressive policy of affirmative action in admitting and hiring minorities and women."

Thomas has strongly supported the notion that his admission was under an affirmative action plan.

During a 1980 Washington Post interview, Thomas said: "You had to prove yourself every day because the presumption was that you were dumb and didn't deserve to be there on merit."


"Every time you walked into a law class at Yale it was like having a monkey jump down on your back from the Gothic arches....The professors and the students resented your very presence."

His feelings were more explicit in the 2007 memoir My Grandfather's Son, in which Thomas wrote: "As much as it stung to be told that I'd done well in the seminary despite my race, it was far worse to feel that I was now at Yale because of it."
Although there isn't documentary evidence (such as admission papers or other paperwork that would settle the question entirely), it appears clear from the testimony of Yale officials and Thomas that his admission to the Yale School of Law was made at the time of affirmative action policies and was almost certainly was influenced by it.


The Supreme Court's other Black justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, sparred with Thomas this week over the decision to overturn affirmative action in U.S. colleges.


Responding to Thomas' 58-page concurring opinion on the ruling, Jackson said: "The takeaway is that those who demand that no one think about race [a classic pink-elephant paradox] refuse to see, much less solve for, the elephant in the room—the race-linked disparities that continue to impede achievement of our great Nation's full potential."

Newsweek has reached out to Yale and a representative for Clarence Thomas via email for comment.
The Ruling

True.
Thomas has repeatedly claimed that affirmative action initiatives or similar policies were responsible for his admission and his sense of discrimination therein. This appears to have been a formative part of Thomas' opposition to the social policy. Testimony from others, including Yale officials, supports this claim.


As noted by Yale, the university embarked on an "aggressive" campaign during the 1960s and 1970s, when Thomas applied. Even without written documentary evidence that separately confirms the decision-making behind Thomas' admission, we can be confident that affirmative action was in place and is likely to have had an influence on his placement.

In the video in the tweet Thomas seemed to think he didn't get a job because he was accepted into college under affirmative action.  Others disagreed with that take.

So, yes.  He did benefit from it.