Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas will no longer teach a constitutional law seminar at George Washington University Law School, following backlash over his vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The news was broken on Wednesday by the GW Hatchet, GWU’s independent student newspaper, which reported that an email was sent to students registered for the class from Gregory Maggs, a former law clerk for Thomas and professor who has split the seminar teaching duties with the justice since 2011.
The email said Thomas was “unavailable” to co-teach the class for the upcoming fall semester, but the class had not been cancelled and Maggs would remain as the “sole instructor.”
“Unfortunately, I am writing with some sad news: Justice Thomas has informed me that he is unavailable to co-teach the seminar this fall,” wrote Maggs in the email. “I know that this is disappointing. I am very sorry.”
“The seminar has not been canceled but I will now be the sole instructor,” Maggs continued. “For those of you still interested in taking the course, I assure you that we will make the best of the new situation.”
The Hatchet report noted that Thomas was no longer listed among the faculty on GWU Law’s website.
Last month, the Supreme Court overturned the landmark abortion case Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and Thomas’ concurring opinion made its own separate headlines. Thomas’ concurrence, which was notably not joined by the other conservative justices, argued that the same legal theory by which they had just overturned Roe should lead the court to “reconsider” other “demonstrably erroneous decisions,” specifically mentioning Griswold v. Connecticut (1965, granting right of married persons to obtain contraceptives), Lawrence v. Texas (2003, right to engage in private, consensual sexual acts), and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015, right to same-sex marriage).
Jim Obergefell, the plaintiff in the last aforementioned case, was among the many who loudly criticized Thomas in response — including some on the right, like Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT).
A petition calling for Thomas to be removed from the GWU Law faculty collected more than 11,000 signatures, but the college’s administration was defending him, issuing a statement at the end of June.
“Because we steadfastly support the robust exchange of ideas and deliberation, and because debate is an essential part of our university’s academic and educational mission to train future leaders who are prepared to address the world’s most urgent problems, the university will neither terminate Justice Thomas’ employment nor cancel his class in response to his legal opinions,” the statement said, according to a report by the Washington Post.
The statement went on to reference GWU’s academic freedom guidelines and argue that while Thomas’ views did not represent the official position of the university, he still “has academic freedom and freedom of expression and inquiry,” and “it is not the proper role of the university to attempt to shield individuals within or outside the university from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.”
Thomas and Maggs had been teaching the seminar, titled “Constitutional Law: Leading Cases in Context,” since 2011. The Winter 2012 edition of the GWU law alumni magazine touted how Thomas was helping GWU students ” find the hidden stories behind fundamental Supreme Court cases,” and described the justice as “genial, forthcoming, and contagiously enthusiastic about the class and the students he feels ‘privileged’ to share it with.”
Neither Maggs, Thomas, nor a GWU spokesperson responded to The Hatchet’s request for comment.
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