Justice Clarence Thomas recently hired a lawyer previously accused of sending racist text messages, reigniting the controversy surrounding her.
Crystal Clanton will begin working for the justice next term, according to the Antonin Scalia School of Law, from which she will graduate in 2022.
In late 2017, a New Yorker story reported that Ms. Clanton, who had served for five years as national field director at Turning Point USA, a conservative student group, had sent the text messages, including the statement “i hate black people”, to another employee. The New York Times has not seen the messages.
Ms. Clanton, who had resigned from the group when the article was published, told the New Yorker at the time that she did not remember the messages and that they “didn’t reflect what I believe or who I am, and the same was true when I was a teenager.” (Ms. Clanton would have been 20 when the messages were sent.) She did not respond to requests for comment Saturday.
In the intervening years, Mrs. Clanton maintained a close relationship with Judge Thomas and his wife, Virginia Thomas. Ms. Thomas once served on the advisory board of Turning Point USA and then hired Ms. Clanton. The justice called the accusations against Ms. Clanton baseless and said she did not believe them to be racist.
Judge Thomas did not respond to a request for comment.
The Thomases welcomed Ms. Clanton into their inner circle. Photos from the Thomases’ 2022 holiday newsletter show she joined the couple for Thanksgiving dinner. The Thomases also celebrated her graduation from Scalia Law.
The law school, which is part of George Mason University, has long been noted for its ties to conservative donors. He has worked to cultivate a close relationship with Supreme Court justices, several of whom have taught there or served as guests at school events, including Justice Thomas. The school was renamed after Justice Scalia in 2016, the result of a $30 million gift masterminded by Leonard Leo, a conservative activist who has worked to push the federal judiciary to the right.
Justice Thomas gave Ms. Clanton a boost to launch her legal career: He endorsed her for a federal clerkship and wrote in a letter of support that he would consider her for Supreme Court clerkships. Lawyers assist judges in reviewing the thousands of petitions filed with the court each year and work with them on pending cases.
Ms. Clanton clerked first for U.S. District Judge Corey L. Maze in Alabama, then for Judge William H. Pryor Jr., a federal appeals judge in the Eleventh Circuit who is known to send clerks to the Supreme Court.
After Judge Pryor hired Ms. Clanton, the controversy surrounding her resurfaced. A group of seven members of Congress wrote a letter to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., expressing concerns about Ms. Clanton’s hiring. In the letter, the lawmakers expressed concerns that such a decision would be “particularly problematic” because of “the closeness that law clerks have to judicial decision-making.”
A federal judicial panel cleared both judges of any wrongdoing in January 2022. One of the judges who reviewed the matter wrote that Judge Maze and Judge Pryor were both aware of the allegations when they hired Ms. Clanton, but had found it to be untrue and found her highly qualified.
In Scalia Law’s announcement of Ms. Clanton’s tenure on the Supreme Court, Justice Pryor gave her a warm recommendation: “After Judge Maze told me how well Crystal had served her term on the circuit court, I had high expectations for her in the Eleventh Circuit . ,” said Judge Pryor. “And it exceeded those expectations. “Crystal is an excellent paralegal.”
Steve Ender contributed reporting for this story.
