Clarence Thomas hires clerk accused of sending racist texts

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has hired a law clerk who faced controversy in 2017 for allegedly sending racist text messages.

Thomas, one of two current Black Supreme Court justices, has named Crystal Clanton as a judicial clerk for the 2024-25 term, George Mason’s Antonin Scalia Law School — Clanton’s alma mater — wrote in a statement.

Her hiring comes more than five years after The New Yorker in 2017 obtained and published screenshots of text messages allegedly sent by Clanton, a former Turning Point USA staffer, to another staffer. 

“I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like f‑‑‑ them all … I hate blacks. End of story,” Clanton wrote, according to The New Yorker.

Clanton, at the time the messages resurfaced, told The New Yorker she had “no recollection,” of the texts. She stepped down from her position at Turning Point USA in the wake of scrutiny over the text messages. 

Months later in 2018, Clanton was hired by Thomas’s wife, Virginia Thomas, to assist her with right-wing media projects. Virginia Thomas spent multiple years as a special correspondent for The Daily Caller and was serving on Turning Point USA’s advisory board at the time of Clanton’s hiring. 

Clanton eventually went on to law school and clerked for Judge Corey Maze with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama before being hired upon her graduation to clerk for Judge William H. Pryor Jr., a federal appeals court judge for the 11th Circuit. 

Her position with Pryor brought the controversy back to the surface, prompting a group of seven lawmakers to voice concerns to Chief Justice John Roberts in a letter in November 2021. 

“Placing an individual with this history in such close proximity to judicial decision-making threatens to seriously undermine the public’s faith in the federal judiciary,” the lawmakers wrote at the time.  

A federal appeals panel later cleared Maze and Pryor of any wrongdoing in their hiring of Clanton when they upheld the dismissal of a misconduct complaint filed against the two Republican judicial appointees, Reuters reported.

Pryor, in the Antonin Scalia Law School’s announcement of Thomas’s hiring of Clanton, said she “exceeded” his “high expectations” and called her an “outstanding clerk.” 

The Hill has reached out to the U.S. Supreme Court and Antonin Scalia Law School for further comment.