4.8 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2024
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Preorder Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative wherever you buy your books.
If you missed Wednesday’s City Journal and Manhattan Institute-hosted livestream, I’ve got you covered. Today I’m releasing the recording of that livestream as a special bonus episode. This event marked the publication of my City Journal essay “Clarence Thomas and Me,” and I had a stellar line-up alongside me to discuss the essay and the work of Clarence Thomas: Ilya Shapiro of the Manhattan Institute, Robert George of Princeton, and Randall Kennedy of Harvard Law School.
0:00 Introductions
2:58 Why Glenn wrote “Clarence Thomas and Me”
5:27 Randall: “Justice Thomas trades on his blackness”
10:58 Glenn: Clarence Thomas has not “betrayed black people”
12:30 Thomas’s engagement with natural law jurisprudence
19:29 How would Thomas have come down on Brown v. Board of Education?
20:55 The loyalty trap
24:20 Randall: Thomas’s originalism may also commit him to sanctioning segregation
28:24 Robbie: There are originalist interpretations that support Brown v. Board of Education
34:07 Thomas’s race cases
36:03 Glenn: Thomas can act as both a principled jurist and as an advocate for the rights of African Americans
40:56 Randall: In 100 years, people will regard Shelby County v. Holder as one of the worst decisions in the Court’s history
44:36 Maintaining integrity under pressure
51:22 What are the differences between Thomas’s, Scalia’s, and Alito’s originalisms?
55:30 Will Thomas have broader popularity in the future?
1:01:10 Is racial solidarity inconsistent with judicial impartiality?
1:03:30 Closing remarks
Recorded January 17, 2024
Links and Readings
Glenn’s City Journal essay, “Clarence Thomas and Me”
Glenn’s book, One by One from the Inside Out : Essays and Reviews on Race and Responsibility in America
Michael McConnell’s article, “The Originalist Case for Brown v. Board of Education”
Randy Barnett and Evan Bernick’s book, The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit
Lon Fuller’s book, The Morality of Law
The documentary on Clarence Thomas, Created Equal
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
0:00.0 | The Glenn Show is brought to you by the Manhattan Institute. |
0:07.0 | Please consider becoming a paid subscriber at Glen Lowry. |
0:11.0 | Substack.com. As a subscriber you will receive new episodes on |
0:16.3 | Mondays instead of Fridays and get access to exclusive content, ticket pre-sales to |
0:21.9 | live events, monthly Q&A's with Glenn Lowry and John |
0:25.4 | Mcwater and other benefits. Your contribution will also help to fund grassroots |
0:31.3 | initiatives that empower Black development across the country as we donate 10% of our profits to the Woodson Center. |
0:39.0 | Thank you. |
0:40.0 | Good evening. My name is I'm I'm I'm a senior fellow and director of |
0:47.0 | constitutional studies here at the Manhattan Institute and boy are you in |
0:52.2 | for a treat tonight. I look forward to watching this |
0:55.6 | panel as much as all of you I'm sure so let's get to it. I will quickly |
0:59.8 | introduce the panelists and the author of the article in City Journal, |
1:06.9 | captivating article by Glenn Lowry called Clarence Thomas and me. |
1:12.3 | So Glenn Lowry, the author, is the Merton P Stoltz, Professor of Economics at Brown University and a Paulson fellow here at |
1:20.0 | M. I. He has earned distinctions like being a distinguished fellow of the American Economics Association, |
1:26.1 | a member of the American Philosophical Society, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and |
1:31.0 | Sciences. He really does it all. And additionally he's the host of the popular |
1:34.8 | podcast, The Glenn Show. After Glenn will be Randall Kennedy, who's the Michael R. Klein professor at Harvard Law School, |
1:44.0 | a legal scholar, former clerk to Justice Thurgen Marshall, |
1:48.0 | received the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award |
1:51.0 | for his work in Race, Crime, and the Law, and has authored several other books. |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in -349 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Glenn Loury, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Glenn Loury and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.