After thousands of student protests and calls for his resignation, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas will no more co-teach a course in George Washington University’s upcoming semester.
Thomas had been teaching a course at the university for the last 10 yearsGregory Maggs, Thomas’ former clerk. But after the Supreme Court’s latest term, in which Thomas voted for federal abortion protections to be overturned and wrote an alarming concurring judgment calling for numerous constitutionally protected rights to be reexamined, dozens of student leaders signed an open letter to the university demanding his dismissal.
In June, the Court’s conservative bloc majority ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson 1973 case: Abortion rights recognized Roe v. Wade Should be overturned. Thomas, in a concurring decision The Court was urged by the Court to go furtherThe court ruled that it should reconsider its previous rulings, which recognized the right of birth control and denied states the power to forbid consensual acts of sex between adults. It also affirmed its support for same-sex marriages.
Thomas did not comment on why he decided to depart from the class, and it’s currently unclear if he will return to the university in future semesters. Maggs will continue to lead the course for the upcoming semester.
Although the official reason why Thomas isn’t teaching this term hasn’t been disclosed, his decision comes after students at the university made it clear that they didn’t want the ultra-conservative justice to give lectures there.
Around 50 student leaders wrote in an open letter that Thomas’s views are incongruent with George Washington University’s values. “Academic freedom means to learn freely and fairly — absent of discrimination,” they wrote.
You can also get a letter from student leaders. a petition garnering over 11,000 signatures as of Thursday morningThomas was asked to not teach this semester.
“With the recent Supreme Court decision that has stripped the right to bodily autonomy of people with wombs, and with his explicit intention to further strip the rights of queer people and remove the ability for people to practice safe sex without fear of pregnancy, it is evident that the employment of Clarence Thomas at George Washington University is completely unacceptable,” the petition said.
The petition also noted that Thomas’s wife, right-wing activist Ginni Thomas, took part “in the attempted coup in January of 2021” by sending numerous messages to state lawmakers and people within the Trump administration, We urge them to reverse the election results and name Trump PresidentYou can apply for a second term.
“Thomas is actively making life unsafe for thousands of students on our campus (not to mention thousands of campuses across the country),” the petition added.
Thomas isn’t just an unpopular figure at George Washington University. MoveOn has launched a nationwide petitionaccumulated more than 1.2 million signaturesFor his impeachment to be rescinded and removed from the Court
