Constitutional Liberties: First Amendment, Religion, Race, and Natural Law (Justice Thomas’s Thirty-Year Legacy on the Court)

On October 21, 2021, the Gray Center and the Heritage Foundation co-hosted a special event to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court of the United States. This event, consisting of a daytime law symposium and evening lecture, brought together jurists, legal academics and practitioners, including many of the Justice’s former clerks, where we discussed his jurisprudence and impact on the Court over the past three decades.

The second panel looked at the constitutional liberties of the first amendment, religion, race, and natural law, relating them to Justice Thomas’s jurisprudence. It included a discussion featuring: Allison Jones Rushing, Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit; Nicole Stelle Garnett, Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School; Elbert Lin, Partner at Hunton Andrews Kurth and former Solicitor General of West Virginia, and Michael McConnell, Professor and Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School. It was moderated by Adam Mortara, Lecturer in Law at University of Chicago Law School.

This episode features Nicole Stelle Garnett, Elbert Lin, Michael W. McConnell, Adam Mortara, and The Honorable Allison Jones Rushing.