June 27, 2009
Legal Department
Eminently Ignorant
I'm probably being unfair, but it seems like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a bit of a dumbass. (Or maybe, as fair Jennifer says, we should have listened to Anita Hill.) That's really the only way to account for his explanation of why it was okay for a school principal to order a strip search of a 13-year-old girl to try to find some ibuprofen.
Thomas was the only Justice that thought this was okay. There are a number of ways he might have tried to justify his opinion---stare decisis, in loco parentis---and for all I know, he used them. But this is just plain stupid:
In this case, officials had searched the girl's backpack and found nothing, Thomas said. "It was eminently reasonable to conclude the backpack was empty because Redding was secreting the pills in a place she thought no one would look," he said.
I think that's what mathematicians derisively call proof by ignorance: It must be true because I can't think of any other possiblies.
In the unlikely even I ever meet Justice Thomas, I'm going to accuse him of smuggling crystal meth in his rectum. By his own logic, he ought to let me check, right?
(I know there's more to it than that, but the stupidity here just pisses me off.)
Thomas adds this:
Thomas warned that the majority's decision could backfire. "Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments," he said. "Nor will she be the last after today's decision, which announces the safest place to secrete contraband in school."
"Nor will she be the last"? What the fuck? They did search her underwear, and she didn't have any drugs. I always assumed Thomas just looked like he was sleeping during oral arguments, or that he was bored because he'd already read it all in the briefs, but maybe he's really just not paying attention.
It's also a question of values. If the cost of keeping dickheaded school administrators from looking in little girls' underwear is that a little more contraband gets into our schools, I, for one, am okay with that.
2 Comments
Leave a comment
.
Funny, Thomas's opinion in this case is the one that finally led me to conclude that he is, for all practical purposes, a total moron.
I don't pay a lot of attention to the personalities on the Supreme Court, but my general impression of Thomas has been favorable. I didn't like some of his rulings, but I assumed he had principles, just not ones I agreed with. However, some of the things he's said about this case are downright silly.