Just in time to celebrate its first anniversary, the
Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture has
included a display featuring Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the U.S.
Supreme Court’s conservative stalwarts.
Justice Thomas appears in an exhibit that was
installed Sunday, a Smithsonian spokeswoman said Monday. The display honors
both of the black justices who ascended to the pinnacle of the legal
profession. The other is Thurgood Marshall.
Justice Thomas’ apparent omission irked conservative
observers, who suspected an ideological bias among Smithsonian officials and
called for the influential jurist’s inclusion in the museum.
Ronald D. Rotunda, distinguished professor of
jurisprudence at the Dale E. Fowler School of Law at Chapman University, said
Justice Thomas deserves to be recognized for his contributions to
constitutional jurisprudence, his record of public service and his
inspirational life story.
“Like Thurgood Marshall, he has been a very influential
justice, and like Thurgood Marshall, he has risen from humble beginnings,” Mr.
Rotunda said. “His father left him, his grandparents raised him. The 1968
assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. turned him to the law. He left a
successful corporate law practice and turned to public service. That path led
him to the Supreme Court.”
Mr. Rotunda said it’s “surprising that it has
taken so long” for the museum to acknowledge such a “seminal figure on the U.S.
Supreme Court.”
