Feb

Let’s Not Forget Some Folks

Happy Black History Month from the Marquette University Law School Student Lounge Announcements Board!

American history contains certain worthy role models of African American attorneys. The Announcement Board lifts us several particular examples: Justice Thurgood Marshall, one of the great liberal lions of the U.S. Supreme Court; U.S. Senator Barack Obama, now pursuing the Presidency of the United States; The Hon. Vel Phillips, a Milwaukee Civil Rights Icon who served as a Democratic elected official for many years; and, for good measure, OJ-freer Johnnie Cochran.

Missing from the Announcement Board were any conservative African-American attorneys. So I will offer two to correct the deficiency:

The first is of course the only other African American to serve on the highest Court in the land, Mr. Justice Clarence Thomas.

A graduate of Catholic schools and Yale Law, before his elevation to the Supreme Court Justice Thomas served as an assistant to the Attorney General of Missouri, Assistant Secretary of Education and chairman of the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission under President Reagan, and on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit under President Bush (41). He often serves as a mentor to young black men and he and his wife are raising their great-nephew Mark.

The other is a name perhaps less known to some: Larry Thompson, who served as Deputy Attorney General during the first Bush 43 administration.

A graduate of Michigan Law, AG Thompson served as U.S. attorney for the northern District of Georgia under President Reagan. He was appointed Deputy Attorney General by President Bush 43, where he helped coordinate Justice’s respone to 9/11 and the corporate accounting scandals, in addition to chairing the committee responsible for federal judicial nominations. Since leaving the Administration in 2004 he has become a senior fellow at Brookings, a visiting professor at Georgia, and senior vice general and general counsel to Pepsi.

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