Justice Tom C. Clark was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1949 to 1967, appointed by President Harry S. Truman after serving as the 59th Attorney General. During eighteen years on the bench he wrote some of the twentieth century’s most consequential opinions, including the ruling that applied the exclusionary rule to the states, the decision striking down government-sponsored Bible reading in public schools, and the twin cases upholding the public accommodations provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.1Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Justice Tom C. Clark
From Dallas to the Justice Department
Clark was born in Dallas on September 23, 1899, earned his law degree from the University of Texas in 1922, and practiced in Texas before joining the Department of Justice in 1937. He worked his way through the Antitrust Division, ran its West Coast offices from 1940 to 1942, and became Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division in 1943.2United States Department of Justice. Attorney General Thomas Campbell Clark Two assignments from that period shape how his pre-judicial record is remembered.
The Internment of Japanese Americans
In late 1941, Attorney General Francis Biddle named Clark civilian coordinator of the Alien Enemy Control Program on the West Coast, working alongside General John DeWitt, the Western Defense Commander.3Harry S. Truman Library. Tom C. Clark Oral History Interview After President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, Clark served as civilian chief of staff on DeWitt’s team and helped implement the forced removal of roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans. He proposed a voluntary migration program first; DeWitt rejected it, and Clark assisted in drafting the military’s justification for mass removal. In a March 1942 radio address, he assured listeners the army did not intend mass removal and that the government would protect property. Those assurances proved hollow. In 1966 Clark publicly expressed regret for his role, a rare admission from a government official directly involved.
Attorney General Under Truman
Truman appointed Clark Attorney General in 1945.2United States Department of Justice. Attorney General Thomas Campbell Clark When Truman signed Executive Order 9835 in March 1947, establishing the federal employee loyalty program, the order directed the Attorney General to designate organizations deemed “totalitarian, fascist, communist or subversive.”4The American Presidency Project. Executive Order 9835 Prescribing Procedures for the Administration of an Employees Loyalty Program Clark released the resulting Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO) in December 1947. Designations were made without notice, charges, or hearings. Clark acknowledged in congressional testimony that skipping hearings was “a little bit contrary to our usual conception of democratic process,” but defended the approach as necessary.5National Archives. Prelude to McCarthyism: The Making of a Blacklist Though intended as an internal guide for loyalty boards, the public list was adopted by state and local governments, the military, and private employers as a blacklist, becoming a significant precursor to the McCarthy era.
Appointment to the Supreme Court
When Justice Frank Murphy died in July 1949, Truman nominated Clark on August 2. The Senate confirmed him on August 18, 1949, by a vote of 73 to 8.6Federal Judicial Center. Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges – Clark, Tom C. On the Court he settled near the center of the Warren Court’s ideological spectrum, generally supportive of law enforcement but willing to enforce constitutional limits on government power.
The Opinions That Define His Record
Mapp v. Ohio and the Exclusionary Rule
Clark’s most influential opinion came in Mapp v. Ohio in 1961. Cleveland police had searched Dollree Mapp’s home without a valid warrant and used what they found to convict her. Writing for the majority, Clark held that evidence obtained through unconstitutional searches could not be used in state criminal trials, extending a rule that had previously applied only in federal court.7Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961) Without that enforcement mechanism, Clark wrote, the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches would be “a mere form of words.” The decision overruled Wolf v. Colorado (1949) and reshaped how every state and local police department in the country conducts investigations.
Abington School District v. Schempp
In 1963 Clark wrote the majority opinion in Abington School District v. Schempp, striking down state-sponsored Bible reading in public schools as a violation of the Establishment Clause. The case challenged Pennsylvania and Maryland laws that required public schools to open each day with readings from the Bible and recitations of the Lord’s Prayer.8Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. School District of Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963) Clark drew a careful line: government-led devotional exercises were unconstitutional, but studying religion for its literary, historical, or educational value was permitted. The distinction rebutted the charge that the Court was hostile to religion itself.
Heart of Atlanta Motel and Katzenbach v. McClung
In December 1964 Clark authored two companion decisions that upheld Title II of the Civil Rights Act. In Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, the owner of a large Atlanta motel that refused Black guests challenged the Act as beyond Congress’s power. Clark held that because the motel sat near two interstate highways and drew most of its business from out-of-state travelers, its discriminatory practices burdened interstate commerce.9Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964)
The same day, Clark decided Katzenbach v. McClung. Ollie’s Barbecue was a small, family-owned restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama, serving a local clientele, but roughly half its food came from a local supplier that had sourced it out of state. The Court held that racial discrimination by restaurants serving food that had moved in interstate commerce fell within Congress’s regulatory power, and that Congress needed only a “rational basis” for that conclusion.10Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294 (1964) Together the two cases gave the Civil Rights Act the constitutional backbone it needed to survive challenge.
Why He Left the Court
On March 2, 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Clark’s son, Ramsey Clark, as Attorney General.11United States Department of Justice. Attorney General William Ramsey Clark The Attorney General runs the department that argues more cases before the Supreme Court than any other litigant, and a father ruling on his son’s cases would have undermined public confidence in the Court’s neutrality.12Supreme Court of the United States. Code of Conduct for Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States Recusal from every federal case would have removed Clark from most of the Court’s docket, so he retired outright on June 12, 1967, ending his eighteen-year tenure.
After the Supreme Court
Clark became the first director of the newly created Federal Judicial Center in 1968, serving until 1970.13Federal Judicial Center. Federal Judicial Center Directors He used the position to develop continuing education programs for federal judges and to study trial delays and court backlogs. Federal law allows retired justices to sit by designation on lower federal courts, and Clark accepted assignments on various United States Courts of Appeals from his retirement until his death, handling a heavy appellate workload well into his seventies.
Clark died on June 13, 1977, in New York City, one day after the tenth anniversary of his retirement from the bench.6Federal Judicial Center. Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges – Clark, Tom C. The man who helped implement the internment of Japanese Americans later wrote the opinion that required every police department in the country to respect the Fourth Amendment. The architect of a Cold War blacklist authored the decisions that gave the Civil Rights Act its constitutional foundation. His record resists simple characterization.