Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reached a historic milestone on November 21, becoming the fifth-longest serving justice in the history of the United States Supreme Court.
Thomas surpassed Justice Hugo Black’s tenure after serving 34 years and 29 days on the nation’s highest court, totaling 12,448 days on the bench. Black served 34 years and 28 days from 1937 to 1971.
President George H.W. Bush nominated Thomas to the Supreme Court to succeed Justice Thurgood Marshall, and the U.S. Senate confirmed Thomas as an associate justice on October 15, 1991, in a 52-48 vote after a contentious confirmation hearing. Thomas officially took his seat on October 23, 1991, making him the second African American to serve on the Supreme Court after Marshall.
At 77 years old, Thomas now trails only four justices in total tenure: William O. Douglas, who served 36 years and 209 days; Stephen Johnson Field; John Paul Stevens; and Chief Justice John Marshall, who served 34 years and 152 days.
If Thomas remains on the bench for approximately five more months, he will surpass Chief Justice Marshall, Justice Stevens, and Justice Field to become the second-longest serving justice in Supreme Court history, trailing only Douglas.
During his tenure, Thomas has emerged as a leader of the Court’s conservative wing and a proponent of originalism, the judicial philosophy that the U.S. Constitution means today what it meant when it was written.
Thomas joined the Court’s majority in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overruled Roe v. Wade and returned the abortion legalization question to the states.
In his dissent to the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which found a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, Thomas wrote: “Our Constitution — like the Declaration of Independence before it — was predicated on a simple truth: One’s liberty, not to mention one’s dignity, was something to be shielded from — not provided by — the State. [The Court’s] decision will have inestimable consequences for our Constitution and our society.”
Thomas also joined the Court’s majority in the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision, which ruled that affirmative action and racial quotas in college admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Thomas was born in Pin Point, Georgia, on June 23, 1948, and was raised by his grandfather in a poor Gullah community near Savannah. He graduated cum laude from the College of the Holy Cross in 1971 and earned his law degree from Yale Law School in 1974.
If Thomas remains on the bench until August 2028, he would become the longest-serving justice in Supreme Court history.