Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, defended Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ affirmative action stance on Wednesday as he faced questioning from the co-hosts of “The View” about his new book.
“Clarence Thomas, he stated that affirmative action diminishes achievements because it allowed people to believe he had not earned his place at Yale and I think we can all agree that affirmative action was put in place to provide opportunities to qualified Black students, like Thomas, because those institutions historically would not give them the opportunities to go,” co-host Sunny Hostin said during the interview about Cruz’s new book, “The Incomparable Clarence Thomas.”
“So what I dont understand how you handle in the book is, why is the lesson from his experience that we should eliminate the remedy rather than eliminate the racism that made the remedy necessary? I dont understand that,” Hostin asked Cruz.
the 6-3 majority ruling in 2023 on affirmative action, saying the court’s decision “sees the universities admissions policies for what they are: rudderless, race-based preferences designed to ensure a particular racial mix in their entering classes.”
JUSTICE THOMAS RECALLS WHY HE WASN’T FRIENDS WITH ALITO IN LAW SCHOOL: ‘CLARENCE, YOU WERE SCARY’
Hostin said, “I mean, I genuinely don’t understand the framing in the book about that.”
Cruz said that affirmative action “encompasses a lot of things” before describing Thomas’ viewpoint.
“If you’re talking about removing barriers, if you’re talking about expanding access, then I’m for that, he’s for that, everyone is for that. If you’re talking about quotas and discriminating based on race, then Justice Thomas has been the clearest defender of the principle that the Constitution prohibits the government discriminating based on race,” he began, before Hostin questioned why the justice felt his Yale degree was “diminished because people felt that it was a result of affirmative action.”
‘LOOK AT ME!’ JUSTICE FIRES BACK AT CRITICS WHO DARE QUESTION HIS BLACKNESS
Cruz responded, “So there was a reason for that. When he came out of Yale Law School, he had done very well in law school. He applied. Not a single law firm would hire him. Every law firm he interviewed said, No.'”
“Welcome to being Black,” co-host Whoopi Goldberg interjected.
Goldberg pointed to Thomas being a constitutional scholar before asking Cruz, “How does he not remember that we weren’t part of the Constitution? Right? We were not. So there’s a reason people didn’t start off, we weren’t all equal.”
TED CRUZ SHUTS DOWN TRUMP SUPREME COURT TALK WITH A FIERY ‘NOT JUST NO, BUT HELL NO’
Cruz argued that Thomas talked about that at length, saying, “Look, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. The 13th Amendment ended slavery. The 14th Amendment protected equal protection. And the 15th Amendment protected the right to vote, specifically for African Americans.”
“So why are we still talking about it if it protects all of this? That’s the thing I guess,” Goldberg said before ending the interview as the show ran out of time.
Cruz’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request
