Justice Clarence Thomas and G. Michael Fenner Offer Joint Seminar
In February, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas came to Creighton University in Omaha and stayed the whole week. Justice Thomas and Professor G. Michael Fenner co-taught a seminar titled "Supreme Court Seminar". The seminar had an enrollment limited to 40 students. These 40 students, Justice Thomas, and Professor Fenner spent an hour and twenty minutes each day of the first full week of February in a small classroom.
The Seminar ran for two weeks. For each day of the first week, the students read and led discussions on a variety of writings about the judicial process and theories of jurisprudence. For each day of the second week, the students turned their focus to Supreme Court cases and continued these jurisprudential discussions with Justice Thomas. The class spent one day discussing the seminal Supreme Court cases on each of the following topics: judicial power; judicial review and democracy; legislative power, federalism, and particularly the federal commerce power; separation of powers and particularly presidential power; the Bill of Rights, the Fourteenth Amendment, and state action; and equal protection of the law and race.
For the week, Justice Thomas had an office in the law school, in the middle of the offices of the members of the full-time faculty, where he welcomed students to stop by his office and chat about the law or just about life.
In addition, Justice Thomas had breakfast each morning with various members of the faculty. He had dinner one evening with a second group of students (again chosen by lottery). Another evening he had dinner at Professor Fenner's home with yet a third group of students.
The entire experience was, as every lawyer (and non-lawyer as well) can imagine, a tremendously rewarding experience for all involved. And it was rewarding on so many different levels, from the intense legal education, to the social aspects of the visit, to the phone calls home asking mom and dad, “Guess who I’m taking a class from this semester?”
