Justice Thomas Hires Only the Best

Isn't this the way it really should be?

Only 30 percent of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's law clerks are women, but he says the relatively small representation of women in his office has nothing to do with sexual harassment charges leveled against him by Anita Hill during his confirmation hearings.

"I don't hire women law clerks," Thomas said. "I hire the best law clerks. And it turns out that 30 percent of them happen to be women." ...

Now a veteran conservative member of the court, Thomas says he hires staff based strictly on merit. He says hiring to achieve gender parity would not be fair to his employees.

"If a woman graduates from law school and I say I'm going to hire her because I need a woman, that seems to me dehumanizing, and the job would be tainted," he said. "That's my attitude."

He says he learned to judge and treat people as individuals from his grandfather, who raised him and his brother in the segregated South.

"My grandfather would say about whites, 'There's good'ns, there's bad'ns,'" Thomas said. "And about blacks, 'There's good'ns, there's bad'ns.'"

"The difference was good and bad, not black and white," he added. "And treating others and being treated ourselves as individuals was our goal."

No quotas for Thomas.