Clarence Thomas Quotes

The purpose that brought the fourteenth amendment into being was equality before the law, and equality, not separation, was written into the law.

Segregation is a very simple constitutional question for me: No classification on the basis of race can be made.

Its whole effect is not to confer or regulate rights, but to require that whatever of these enumerated rights and obligations are imposed by State laws shall ... be without distinction based on race.

Individuals who have been wronged by unlawful racial discrimination should be made whole; but under our Constitution there can be no such thing as either a creditor or a debtor race. That concept is alien to the Constitution's focus upon the individual. ...To pursue the concept of racial entitlement - even for the most admirable and benign of purposes - is to reinforce and preserve for future mischief the way of thinking that produced race slavery, race privilege and race hatred. In the eyes of government, we are just one race here. It is American

I know that my race must change. We cannot hold our own with the white men as we are. We only ask an even chance to live as other men live. We ask to be recognized as men. We ask that the same law shall work alike on all men. If an Indian breaks the law, punish him by the law. If a white man breaks the law, punish him also.

If colleges wanted to admit only legacies, or only tuba players, or only people who got astonishingly low SAT scores ' to ensure some of their graduates would be U.S. senators one day ' the Constitution wouldn't stop them. What the states, including state colleges, cannot do under the Constitution is discriminate on the basis of race.

Passionate ideological opposition to race preferences does not seem to be part of the Bush DNA, and President Bush has been no exception to this rule . . . It is not the legitimate business of government in America to promote 'diversity.'

That there shall be no discrimination in civil rights or immunities ... on account of race ... but the inhabitants of every race ... shall have the same right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, and shall be subject to like punishment ... and no other

When a man has emerged from slavery, and by the aid of beneficent legislation has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of the state, there must be some stage in the progress of the elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen, and ceases to be the special favorite of the law.

Race has no place in American life or law.

Hereafter in the enlistment of men in the Army... no distinction whatsoever shall be made on account of race or color

No person can, on account of color, be disqualified as a witness, or be disabled to contract otherwise than as others are disabled, or be prevented from acquiring ... property, or be liable to any other punishment for any offense than that imposed upon others for a like offense ... or be subjected in law, to any other restraints or qualifications in regard to any personal rights other than such as are laid upon others under like circumstances.

I rejoice that I have lived to see this day, when the colored people of this favored land, by law, have equal privileges with the most favored. And I have faith to believe that ere long equal justice will be granted to the poor Indians and the Chinese.

The author of the Declaration of Independence and his associates declared equal rights impracticable in society constituted of masses of different races

The object of the [13th] amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other

If affirmative action is quotas, then I am not for it. If it means equal opportunity, then I say support that. But to ask for special treatment because of race, that bothers me...

The Constitution doesn’t say that whites alone shall have our basic rights.., but that we shall all have them

The guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color. If both are not accorded the same protection, then it is not equal.

I believe that there is a moral and constitutional equivalence between laws designed to subjugate a race and those that distribute benefits on the basis of race in order to foster some current notion of equality.... In my mind, government-sponsored racial discrimination based on benign prejudice is just as noxious as discrimination inspired by malicious prejudice.

Civil rights are civil rights. There are no persons who are not entitled to their civil rights... We have to recognize that we have a long way to go, but we have to go that way together.

Justice, poised and balanced in eternal calm, will shake from the golden scales in which are weighed the acts of men, the very dust of prejudice and caste: No race, no color, no previous condition, can change the rights of men.

The paramount duty of maintaining public order and defending the interests of our own people may require the adoption of measures of restriction, but they should not tolerate the oppression of individuals of a special race.

If discrimination based on race is constitutionally permissible when those who hold the reins can come up with "compelling" reasons to justify it, then constitutional guarantees acquire an accordion-like quality.

I do not think that any man should be attacked because of his race or religion, or that he should be immune from attack because of race or religion.

I believe in equal rights for all citizens. One law for all.