Yale Law School Accepted a Donation for Clarence Thomas’s Portrait. Five Years Later, the Painting Is Nowhere To Be Seen.

It’s been over three years since Texas billionaire Harlan Crow donated $105,000 to Yale Law School to commission a portrait of his friend, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The portrait was painted by New York City-based artist Jacob Collins and was reportedly framed in March 2019. However, students and faculty members say they’ve never seen it, and certainly not displayed in a place of prominence.

Dozens of portraits adorn the walls of Yale Law School, which uses them to honor the law school’s founders as well as distinguished graduates and professors. The portraits fall into two categories: those that are automatically displayed and those that are displayed by the dean’s discretion. The former includes alumni or faculty members who have served as president of the United States, justices of the Supreme Court, or chief judge of one of the circuit courts—a category that should include Thomas.

All portraits, aside from those of former deans, must be commissioned with outside funding, and Crow in 2018 provided the $105,000 to fund Thomas’s portrait after Yale Law School professor George Priest worked to repair Thomas’s relationship with the school and helped to persuade the justice to sit for the portrait’s painting.

“It’ll be hung, there’s no doubt about that. We have Abe Fortas’s portrait up, for crying out loud,” Priest said, referring to the Yale Law School graduate and former U.S. chief justice who resigned from his seat in 1969 after revelations that he was receiving payments of $20,000 annually from the family foundation of a Wall Street financier—for the rest of his life—in exchange for unspecific advice.

Why the Delay?

Neither Yale Law School dean Heather Gerken nor a spokesman for the law school responded to requests for comment about the portrait’s whereabouts. Some speculate that the delay may be due to student protests or controversy surrounding Justice Thomas’s relationship with his alma mater. In his autobiography, Thomas wrote of his feeling that a Yale Law School degree “meant one thing for white graduates and another for blacks” and of affixing a 15 cent price sticker to his diploma and tossing it in the basement. However, in recent years, he has visited the school and called his resentments “juvenile.”

What Happens Next?

Typically, the university has marked portrait unveilings with celebratory events. The school in 2017 held such an event for the unveiling of Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s portrait, which now hangs in the law school’s largest classroom. It remains to be seen when Justice Thomas’s portrait will be unveiled and where it will be displayed.

Portraits at Yale Law School

• Dozens of portraits adorn the walls of Yale Law School
• They are used to honor the law school’s founders as well as distinguished graduates and professors
• The portraits fall into two categories: those that are automatically displayed and those that are displayed by the dean’s discretion
• All portraits, aside from those of former deans, must be commissioned with outside funding

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