Thomas Takes Oath as Justice of High Court

A joyous Clarence Thomas was sworn in Friday as the 106th justice of the U.S. Supreme Court during a gala ceremony on the White House lawn before almost 1,000 supporters, including the Republican senators who ushered his nomination through contentious confirmation hearings.

With family, friends and political supporters looking on, Thomas spoke in even, measured tones as he accepted the oath of office from Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White. Then, repeatedly flashing a thumbs-up sign and smiling broadly, he exclaimed: “Wow. . . ! This is wonderful.”

The 43-year-old conservative appeals court judge is the second black to sit on the Supreme Court. He succeeds Justice Thurgood Marshall, the high court’s first black justice and a staunch liberal. Marshall announced his retirement last summer for health reasons.

During the ceremony, Thomas showed no sign of the anger that he flashed during last weekend’s Senate hearings into allegations by University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Faye Hill that he had sexually harassed her while she worked for him at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the early 1980s.

Beaming at the show of support from the crowd, Thomas observed that the clear, blue sky above the White House represented a new day both for him and for the nation, suggesting that his happiness at being confirmed overshadowed any bitterness he felt about the process.

Without referring directly to the hearings, Thomas said: “There have been many difficult days as we all went through the confirmation battle. But on this sunny day . . . there is joy--joy in the morning.”

Thomas also promised in his brief remarks to put the past behind him and “move forward.” And, he added: “It is a time to look for solutions rather than exploit problems.”

Supreme Court swearing-in ceremonies traditionally occur in the stately White House East Room. But to accommodate the large contingent of Thomas’ family members and supporters, officials staged the ceremony outdoors in a setting more typical of a visiting head of state.

The unusual backdrop gave President Bush a rare opportunity to host a crowd whose composition would suggest that he has broad support among blacks. About one-third of those invited by both Thomas and the White House were blacks.

The President, serving as master of ceremonies, said in opening remarks to Thomas: “The whole nation has learned that the passion and the intellect and the independence of mind all spring from a single source: an inner strength stamped on (your) character long ago.”

After the ceremony, Thomas’ wife, Virginia, hugged John N. Doggett III, the Texas businessman and character witness who attacked Hill’s credibility during the hearings. She told him: “I love you. You were telling them.”

Others present on the South Lawn included a contingent from Thomas’ hometown of Pin Point, Ga. Many rushed to thank two of Thomas’ Republican backers on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sens. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, offering pens and paper for autographs.

“Sir, you did a beautiful job, you did a great, great job,” 68-year-old Johnnie Jones of Ft. Washington, Md., told Simpson. Jones said that he has known Thomas since the early 1980s, when his wife worked for the rising black conservative at the EEOC.

Among those in the crowd were members of the Compton, Calif., chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, which had defied the national organization by endorsing Thomas. His nomination was opposed by the NAACP executive board.

Conservative activists, meanwhile, seized the opportunity to boast of their recent victory. They said that Thomas, the grandson of a Georgia sharecropper who rose from childhood poverty to graduate from Holy Cross College and Yale Law School, represents an important symbol in their efforts to dominate national politics.

Several cited Thomas’ tenure as chairman of the EEOC and civil rights chief in the Department of Education under Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bush as evidence that conservative Republicans are making inroads with black Americans.

“The power of the radical left was broken by the failed attempt to discredit a good man,” said the Rev. Pat Robertson, whose nationally televised “700 Club” urged Thomas’ supporters to write and call lawmakers. Robertson added that White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu agreed that Thomas’ victory is a “watershed” in American politics.

The only discordant note stemmed from an apparent dispute between the executive and judicial branches over when Thomas officially would join the high court. White House officials said that Thomas had become an associate justice with the administration of the oath of office on the South Lawn.

But that interpretation was sharply rebuked by White, who served as a stand-in for Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who was taking care of details related to his wife’s death on Thursday. Before administering the oath, White stressed that Thomas would not become his colleague until “10 o’clock on Nov. 1,” when he will recite a separate judicial oath.

“And, we look forward to that day,” White said.