Clarence Thomas Breaks Seven-Year Silence from Bench to Make Fun of Yale

The Supreme Court's strong silent type has broken character. Justice Clarence Thomas went nearly seven years without making a peep during oral arguments, but today he just had to get in a jab at Yalies. This morning, the Twitter account of SCOTUS Blog—a site that follows the daily docket of our nation's highest court—broke news about Thomas ending his silent streak: 

It's unclear why Justice Thomas delivered this quip, or the exact context of it, though we do know that the Supreme Court was hearing arguments on Alleyne v. United States—a case regarding criminal sentencing—when he uttered it. To understand why justice nerds are going nuts about Thomas' statement, you have to understand that this man holds the record for staying mum on the Supreme Court bench. "There is no record of any justice completing a single term ... without asking a question," NPR's Nina Totenberg once noted. "Indeed, scholars have calculated that the other eight justices ask on average 133 questions per hourlong session. But Thomas remains silent."

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And to fully get Thomas' joke, you have to know that his scorn for Yale runs deep. He got his J.D. there in 1974, but has no fond memories of the school. In his autobiography My Grandfather's Son, Thomas writes that the school "tricked" him into attending, and he's kept his distance from alumni ever since graduation. He felt that white classmates treated him as a token affirmative action student,  and he believes that his degree carries "the taint of racial preference." Describing his Yale days, he writes: 

Thomas last spoke during oral arguments in February 2006, piping up to comment on a rape case titled Holmes v. South Carolina. Thomas' points helped overturn the death penalty for Bobby Holmes.