The fabricated controversy over Justice Thomas and his billionaire friend Harlan Crow has missed what should be the real controversy. Crow contributed $105,000 to Yale Law School! YLS is of course Justice Thomas’s alma mater.
But wait! There’s more. The Thomas connection is no coincidence. Crow’s contribution was for a worthy cause, sure to generate heartburn among the authorities at YLS. Crow’s contribution was for a portrait of Justice Thomas to hang in his honor at his alma mater.
YLS Dean Heather Gerken thanked Crow for the gift and described Justice Thomas as a “trailblazer.” She thanked Crow for his generosity. “We are so pleased to welcome the justice to our outstanding gallery of portraits,” Gerken wrote. “They will always have a place of prominence at Yale Law School.”
But wait! There is still more. Five years later, students and faculty members say they’ve never seen the portrait, and certainly not displayed in a place of prominence. It’s an artistic Where’s Waldo? situation.
My daughter Eliana reports on the missing portrait in the Washington Free Beacon story “Yale Law School Accepted a Donation for Clarence Thomas’s Portrait. Five Years Later, the Painting Is Nowhere To Be Seen.” As Eliana explains, portraits of YLS alumni who have served as president of the United States, justices of the Supreme Court, or chief judge of one of the circuit courts are to be displayed without further ado.
The story offers an interesting sidebar to the fabricated Harlan Crow controversy. We can always count on the official nonresponse: “Neither Gerken nor a spokesman for the law school responded to requests for comment about the portrait’s whereabouts.”
Quotable quote (Edward J. Phelps Professor of Law and Economics George Priest): “It’ll be hung, there’s no doubt about that. We have Abe Fortas’s portrait up, for crying out loud.”
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