U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas will deliver the Roman L. Hruska Institute for the Administration of Justice lecture at noon, Sept. 15 in the College of Law's Hamann Auditorium. The lecture is free and open to the public.
This is the second time in 2011 that Justice Thomas has given his time to the University of Nebraska College of Law. In May, he delivered the commencement address to the college's 2011 graduates. While on campus, Justice Thomas will meet with groups of students and guest lecture in classes in addition to his public lecture.
The Roman L. Hruska Institute for the Administration of Justice was established in 1995 by a generous gift to the Nebraska State Bar Foundation. The purpose of the institute is to "educate lawyers, law students, and the public-at-large in Nebraska to the importance of the administration of justice, particularly at the federal level through the conduct of symposia and lectures."
Thomas was born in the Pin Point community of Georgia near Savannah June 23, 1948. He attended Conception Seminary and received an A.B., cum laude, from Holy Cross College, and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1974. He was admitted to law practice in Missouri in 1974, and served as an assistant attorney general of Missouri from 1974-1977, an attorney with Monsanto Co. from 1977-1979, and legislative assistant to Sen. John Danforth from 1979-1981. From 1981-1982, he served as assistant secretary for civil rights in the U.S. Department of Education, and as chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 1982-1990. He became a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1990. President George H.W. Bush nominated him as an associate justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat Oct. 23, 1991. He married Virginia Lamp in 1987 and has one child, Jamal Adeen, by a previous marriage.