"Justice Thomas has never strayed from those beginnings. A bust of his grandfather—himself raised
by a grandmother born into slavery—watches over his office. It is an ever-present reminder that he
is no ordinary Justice. Come the first Monday in October, the Justice, born into poverty few can
fathom and educated in a segregated Savannah school room, will take the bench and begin his thirty-
third year on the U.S. Supreme Court. He will ask a question most haven’t considered. And he will
cast his votes and write opinions based on his mind alone.
We are proud to have been his clerks and to remain his friends, and we unequivocally reject attacks
on his integrity, his character, or his ethics."