Stanley Fish, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has written a beautiful two page defense of Clarence Thomas’s decision in the affirmative action case last week:
Justice Thomas is not the only one in search of timeless tools to deal with the untidiness of the situations time throws up. It is the law’s claim precisely to base itself in such tools. But I believe this search has failed, and therefore we will always be engaging in the ad hoc, pragmatic reasoning of which Justice Thomas accuses the majority.
Accordingly, I find the nice political dance performed by Justice O’Connor
M. Scott Eiland
Ugh. Admittedly, it was what appeared to be a sincere defense, but having one’s intellectual honesty defended by Stanley Fish is like having one’s chastity vouched for by Madonna–not terribly convincing or helpful even if sincere. I’ll give him props for not endorsing the veiled racism that characterizes the left’s treatment of Thomas, but the man is still one of the high priests of the PC movement, and that alone is enough for me to hold him in contempt.