Washington Post Corrects Story That Said Clarence Thomas’ Opinions Resemble ‘Thinking of White Conservatives’

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The Washington Post issued a correction on Thursday after a report said the opinions of Associate Justice Clarence Thomas resembled “the thinking of White conservatives.”

The Post published a story on the apparent influence Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) has over President Joe Biden as he decides who will replace retiring Associate Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court.

Biden pledged during his campaign that he would nominate the first Black woman to sit on the court.

Clyburn’s endorsement of Biden in 2020 is of course widely attributed as having saved Biden’s then-fledgling campaign ahead of Super Tuesday.

A story authored by Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Marianna Sotomayor noted:

Biden, 79, and Clyburn, 81, have been friends for decades, and the South Carolina lawmaker’s endorsement helped the former vice president overcome a string of damaging early-state losses to win the state’s Democratic primary in 2020, saving his political career and putting him on course to win the White House.

The Post noted Clyburn’s “tremendous influence” on the upcoming process to replace Breyer, before noting that allies of the Democrat believe any nominee he might float will be vetted as reliably progressive:

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), a friend and ally of Clyburn’s for over 3o years, said even Clyburn’s critics respect his political instincts and his connection with a valuable but often disappointed subset of Democratic voters.

“Nobody that I’m aware of feels that opposing Clyburn’s nomination would be the wise thing to do,” he said. “If you know that a person has been vetted by Jim Clyburn, you know that person won’t go to the court and end up being a Clarence Thomas,” referring to the Black justice whose rulings often resemble the thinking of White conservatives.

After the line about Thomas went viral online and resulted in backlash, the Post issued the following correction:

CLARIFICATION

A previous version of this story imprecisely referred to Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinions as often reflecting the thinking of White conservatives, rather than conservatives broadly. That reference has been removed.

The latest version of the Post’s report refers to Thomas simply as “the Black conservative justice.”