15th John M. Ashbrook Memorial Dinner

Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, was born in the Pin Point community of Georgia near Savannah June 23, 1948. He married Virginia Lamp May 30, 1987 and has one child, Jamal Adeen.

He attended Conception Seminary from 1967 to 1968 and received an A.B., cum laude, from Holy Cross College in 1971 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1974.

He was admitted to law practice in Missouri in 1974, and served as an Assistant Attorney General of Missouri from 1974 to 1977; an attorney with the Monsanto Company from 1977 to 1979; and Legislative Assistant to Senator John Danforth from 1979 to 1981. From 1981 to 1982 he served as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Education, and a Chairman of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 1982 to 1990. From 1990 to 1991, he served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

President Bush nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat on October 23, 1991.

This event has passed. A transcript of Justice Thomas’s speech is available here. A recording of Justice Thomas’s session with the Ashbrook Scholars, originally featured on C-Span, is available below.