I must admit to some confusion. Did you see the article on the front page of yesterday’s New York Times about Clarence Thomas and his membership in the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc.? Did it confuse you, too?

In the first place, I recognize that I am not on anybody’s list of “Distinguished Americans”. But I didn’t know that I was so far below the people on that list that no one ever even bothered to tell me that there was such a classification, and that there was such a grouping, or even that there was a Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc.

But that’s not the source of my confusion. My confusion is much deeper.

It appears that the members of this society are by and large very financially successful and philanthropic Americans who have provided (generally, without fanfare, it seems) a significant amount of scholarships to support young Americans who come from deprived backgrounds (mainly minority) and who have shown the ability to overcome their backgrounds and pursue university education. I can’t (and don’t want to) find fault in that.

But what is Clarence Thomas doing there? Clarence Thomas had not been financially successful and, to my knowledge, hasn’t shown himself to be of a particular philanthropic bent. Clarence Thomas was a government lawyer and bureaucrat who had spent a little over a year as a federal Court of Appeals judge and was nominated to be, and barely confirmed as, a Supreme Court Justice. And, oh yes, Clarence Thomas was Black.

That brings us to “affirmative action”. Thomas graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester MA, and was admitted to the Yale Law School. He claims that his admission to Yale showed that he was the victim and beneficiary of affirmative action. Putting aside the question as to whether the affirmative action can be both a curse and a blessing, from what I can see, there was nothing mysterious about Thomas’ admission as one of the 12 Black students at Yale Law that year. According to something I read (and reading is believing, right?), Thomas graduated 9th in his class from Holy Cross.

How Thomas did at Yale is harder to scope out because Yale (a few years after I graduated) dropped letter grades and primarily went on a pass/fail system. But he says (and no one seems to disagree) that he was not one of the academic stars of his class. I can identify with that as well.

I entered Yale Law about 5 years before Thomas. I think there were fewer than 10 Black students in my class of 175, and about the same number of women (boy has that changed). I honestly don’t know if the Black men felt as estranged as Thomas says that he felt at Yale. From my non-Black perspective, my Black classmates were welcomed as part of the class and certainly not looked at as affirmative action babies. They seemed to participate in all aspects of school life and, after graduation, they seem to have been as successful as the Whites – they became law firm partners, law school professors, judges.

On the other hand, the 6 or 7 women (one was Black), I know felt less than second class citizens. One was made fun of by a professor early in the year, they all shied away from some activities, and with one exception (and she was a second year transfer student), they have not attended our every five year reunions (the Black students have). Their professional lives were not as successful on average as most of their classmates.

Thomas complains that, after graduation, he was unable to get a job with major law firm, and says that is because he was Black, and because law firms seemed to assume he only got into Yale because of his race. He also seems to accuse Yale of giving him false expectations as to his job prospects.

I don’t find it surprising that a Black Yale Law graduate in the early 1970s had a hard time getting a job in a major law firm. (By the way, I don’t know what my Black classmates’ first jobs were.) But I will tell you this: in the early 1970s, women were not being hired by major law firms. And, to a significant extent, neither were Jews or, where they were, there were certain formal or informal quotas in place. And, in my class, there were no Asians, Hispanics, or Native Americans at all.

So, sure, Blacks had a very difficult time breaking into the legal profession at certain levels. And, they were not alone.

But Thomas did OK in his career as we know. And he did it within the legal profession (although he never “practiced law” per se). And he did it as a Black…….and as a conservative. Say, what? There have never been many Black conservatives, as we know. And, at least over the past 40 years or so, they have really been in demand as the Republican Party has struggled to show that they were more than a party of White America. So, whether or not it was part of an official policy, can we doubt that Thomas’ rise to the Supreme Court was fueled by thoughts of affirmative action?

In being so adamant about ending affirmative action, as Thomas has been over at least the last 30 years, isn’t he denying to other young Blacks the route that was so successful for himself? [Why would he do that? It reminds me of the oft-used term, which I don’t understand, of self-hating Jew. Could you conclude that Clarence Thomas is a self-hating Black?]

Well, this post is already long enough, so let’s cut to the chase. (An apt phrase; I wonder if Thomas would enjoy hunting the fox.) The chase is the Horatio Alger Society.

From Thomas’ point of view, joining this group is the fulfillment of a decades long ambition. It is the equivalent to have been hired by Sullivan and Cromwell out of law school. He could now associate as an equal with Distinguished Americans.

And, from the perspective of the Horatio Alger Association, it was affirmative action at its best. They brought into their ranks not only a Black man (I think they had other Blacks as well – I don’t think Thomas was a first in that regard), but a Black man who was unable to contribute to the scholarship funds that form the lifeline of the Association. But here is a Black man who could lend prestige to the Association – just his presence, his position as a Justice, his willingness to act as a spokesman and to enable the Distinguished Americans to have an in at the Supreme Court. Yes, affirmative action at its best.

In fact, beyond this, everything that the Horatio Alger Association seems to do is the equivalent of affirmative action. They look at young students, mainly minorities, from impoverished backgrounds and they provide them with scholarship money. They are a private affirmative action organization.

Want to know more? Want to check my facts? Go to the website of the Association – http://www.horatioalger.org. You will see exactly what they do. OH, WAIT!!!!!! Can’t do that? You say the website is down? It wasn’t down yesterday before the Times published their piece. Now, I assume the website is being rewritten to change the way the Distinguished American talk about themselves. I am sure it will be back up soon – keep your eyes on the NYT to see the next article: how the Horatio Alger Association is rewriting their own history.