Why is Clarence Thomas so consistently awful?

[conuly]

Seriously, why? Why is it that every time there's an 8:1 split on some obvious issue, he's always the 1?

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-rules-case-involving-cheerleaders-profanity-social/story?id=78182855

It was not even a little surprising to me to find out, as always, that he's that guy.

Comments

[altamira16]

My favorite summary of this case was:

SCOTUS says, "Fuck outta here" to the school punishing a high school cheerleader for posting, "Fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything" on Snapchat. https://t.co/Enk1XUyRxu

— The Rude Pundit (@rudepundit) June 23, 2021

[silveradept]

Given what he's been like outside of the court, it seems less surprising that he's going to be in favor of the suppression of speech in all aspects of our lives, but even this should have been a dunk for them.

I still see a lot of "we intend to monitor your students' behavior outside of the school and will deliver consequences if you are bullying a classmates online or away from the campus," which I want to say that stopping bullying is a good idea, using intrusive surveillance and punishment is not.

[thewayne]

He shouldn't be there in the first place and I expect they'll carry him out feet-first.

[pauamma]

I've skimmed through Thomas' dissent (at the end of the court decision, after the concurrence by Alito and Gorsuch), and regardless of his conclusion, it seems to me he has an important point when he complains about the failure, after a number of SC and appeals courts decisions, to set clear rules about out-of-school speech for students and schools to follow. As to being That Guy, I would look at Alito instead, since he appears, in his concurrence, to push forward the notion that parents basically waive all their children's free speech rights by enrolling them in school, which is basically an attempt to overturn Tinker v. Des Moines, if I understand it correctly.