Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is barely included in the Smithsonian’s brand new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., despite his distinguished life and career.
The second African American ever to sit on the nation’s highest court is not showcased, while the woman who accused him of sexual harassment and became famous for testifying during his confirmation hearing is featured, the Daily Caller News Foundation reports. Anita Hill is portrayed as a woman of courage and an activist.
Thomas has faced racism in his life, growing up in Georgia to a poor family during the Jim Crow era. He ended up going to Yale Law School and became the chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Thomas is not the only highly accomplished African American jurist to be excluded from the museum, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Judge Janice Rogers Brown, the first black woman to serve on the California Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (generally regarded as the second-highest court in the land) is also not featured. Brown is a George W. Bush-appointee to the federal bench and is a committed libertarian jurist.
Thomas was nominated to the high court by President George H.W. Bush and takes a textualist approach to interpreting the Constitution, trying to uphold the document’s original meaning.