Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas will teach a course at UT’s School of Civic Leadership to 17 UT undergraduate students in spring 2027.
The course is a one-credit-hour discussion seminar called “Equality and the New Birth of Freedom.” It will focus on reading texts by civil rights activists and political figures including Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
Thomas will teach on campus for two hours every morning for a week in February. Justin Dyer, dean of the School of Civic Leadership, said he will facilitate the class, meeting with students and grading their assignments throughout the semester before Thomas comes to campus.
Thomas spoke at UT in April. Dyer said Thomas expressed an interest in teaching a course after interacting with UT students during his visit.
The course is specifically for undergraduate students, which Dyer said is unique because Supreme Court justices typically choose to teach at law schools.
The School of Civic Leadership has been criticized for being founded by conservative lawmakers in coordination with UT officials, according to The Texas Tribune. The New York Times described the college as having “the goal of attracting more conservative students.” The school describes itself on its website as providing a “pre-partisan education.”
Thomas is the longest-serving current Supreme Court justice and could become the longest-serving justice of all time if he stays until May 2028. He has made decisions for gun rights and against affirmative action and abortion.
“I would be excited for any Supreme Court justice to teach at the University,” Dyer said. “(Thomas) has a unique place in American history and a unique interest in this subject matter, and so I think to have the opportunity to meet with him, to go through these texts will be pretty unique for the students. We want a broadly pluralistic group of students to take a class and have a lively discussion about the texts.”
Students who have taken the GOV/CIV 312P Constitutional Principles course were invited to apply to take Thomas’ course. Dyer said mainly students in the Stedman Scholars in Great Books Program and Civic Honors, formerly named Jefferson Scholars, take the prerequisite course. Sixty-five students applied, Dyer said.
A majority of students taking the course are Civic Honors majors, but the class includes a mixture of students in other colleges.
“I hope they have an opportunity to engage deeply with sources that are important for understanding America and some of the tensions in the American story,” Dyer said. “And I hope they get a chance to converse with each other, with people that disagree about these texts, and they have an opportunity to talk with their fellow students about it and to learn from somebody who’s a really unique and historic figure in America.”
