Off the Record

Howard’s Folly. With Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings approaching, Cato decided to look back at the last time Mr. Thomas went before the Judiciary Committee. Much of that inquisition had to do with his tenure as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, particularly with reference to age-discrimination cases that had lapsed.

There, at the very end of the 251-page transcript, we found the little exchange we were looking for. A somewhat agitated Senator Howard Metzenbaum (D., Ohio) was arguing the EEOC had deprived people of their rights by failing to follow up on certain cases. Mr. Thomas vainly tried to explain that under the law states were responsible for investigating these complaints. The senator continued literally to make a federal case of it, saying, “I have to tell you, Mr. Thomas, I think you are 100 per cent wrong, and if I am wrong I will publicly apologize.”

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Howard’s Folly. With Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings approaching, Cato decided to look back at the last time Mr. Thomas went before the Judiciary Committee. Much of that inquisition had to do with his tenure as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, particularly with reference to age-discrimination cases that had lapsed.

There, at the very end of the 251-page transcript, we found the little exchange we were looking for. A somewhat agitated Senator Howard Metzenbaum (D., Ohio) was arguing the EEOC had deprived people of their rights by failing to follow up on certain cases. Mr. Thomas vainly tried to explain that under the law states were responsible for investigating these complaints. The senator continued literally to make a federal case of it, saying, “I have to tell you, Mr. Thomas, I think you are 100 per cent wrong, and if I am wrong I will publicly apologize.”